Seven Brides for Seven Bunnies
by Brithund
Summary: After graduating, Plucky's life is not the "Happy ever after" he had in mind...
1. Chapter 1

Seven Brides for Seven Bunnies

(Author's note: This is the sequel to "Loonquest", set about 2 months later. Plucky's neighbours Gracie and Gladys appear for about 10 seconds and are named in the original cartoon, but don't get any lines.)

Chapter One

The city of Acme Acres in late September rested under a golden end-of-summer haze – a 10 percent wash of Marigold Yellow, listed as shade #4 on the model colour chart to be precise – as the more alert of its inhabitants noted the turning of the season. For some it was time to harvest the crops, for others it was time to pack away the beach ball and surfboard for another year and head home. At the city's famous Acme Looniversity the halls were still empty but smelling of polish and fresh paint; the building seemed to be holding its breath (not impossible for a Toon structure) and bracing itself for the impact of the usual mob of new and returning students eager to learn the fine and coarse arts of Comedy.

Of course, every year that meant some once familiar faces would be missing from its hallowed halls, their places in class taken by a new generation who would briefly wonder who the names written inside the desks and lockers had belonged to. Not all toons who graduated with their Degree of Lunacy ever managed to break into the world of fame and fortune they had studied hard for years to qualify for. Some, on the other hand, were already doing very nicely.

"I'm heeerrrreee!" At Acme Acres airport, a pink and white bunny waved gleefully at the city from the top of the aircraft boarding ramp. She was dressed in a colourful Asian robe that set off her fur skilfully, and silk scarves fluttered at her long ears. Behind her a blue and white bunny buck halted for a second, leaning nonchalantly against the fuselage door frame, wearing the top part of a white safari suit and slipping mirror shades into his pocket.

Babs Bunny looked around the airport, her ears drooping a little. "The last flight we got off had a few hundred more fans waving us."

"That was in Mumbai. Folk had just seen us on the big screen. I don't think they've even released the film over here yet. Anyway, when was the last time you watched anything that needed sub-titles?" Buster picked up his flight bag and followed his wife down the steps to the concrete where some familiar faces were visible in the crowd. "You've got your wish though – there's a camera team waiting for us, and at least Mary knows what we've been doing!"

"This is Mary Melody, at the airport reporting for K-ACME TV." As they approached, a pretty African-American lady reporter strode forwards with a microphone. She winked at Babs. "Arriving back in town are our latest film stars – they only graduated in July, and they've two films in the can already. Fresh from their success in Bollywood, Acme Acres' very own Babs and Buster Bunny!"

"Related." The rabbits said in sync, holding paws. Babs was bursting to hug Mary and tell her a million things, but first Mary had her job to do.

"The smash hit stars of the comic Bollywood hit '_You'll be sari!_' and the forthcoming remake of '_Blue Danube_,' '_Blue Indus'_. How did you find the subcontinent?" Mary asked.

"Not a problem. We changed planes at Los Angeles, and eight hours later there we were." Buster deadpanned.

"Sub-continent? I thought it was super!" Babs gave her best grin for the camera a tall zebra toon was carrying just behind Mary's shoulder. "What's not to like? We got to nearly dance our paws off – and with toes like these, that takes a lot of dancing. They loved us – and I've brought home the recipe for Gajar Halwa, a carrot dessert that's to die for!"

"So many brave young carrots did," Buster inclined his head respectfully.

"And that's the word from Acme Acres' latest international stars. Watch your movie screens for developments, folks! Mary Melody at K-ACME, signing out." Mary switched off the microphone, and smiled. "Welcome home!"

* * *

An hour later, the scene was a freshly dug burrow under Acme Forest. It was cosy, still very basic and built just for two – but when the whole planet was there to be dug into, there was plenty of room for expansion as needed.

"We weren't in here three days after we came back from our Bunnymoon – there was Fifi's and Rhubella's wedding, then they headed East to France on their honeymoon and we headed West to Bollywood." Babs looked around, alone with Mary and relaxed, as Buster and Jaggi Di Speckle went out for supplies. "Settling in – we haven't. It's been hotels and film sets ever since. And we've Hollywood auditions next week." She relaxed, stretching out on the couch that had been in Buster's burrow. That bachelor burrow was now abandoned as per rabbit traditions, the car tyre suspended outside swinging in the wind awaiting a new resident. "What a rush!" She smiled slyly at her friend, taking in Mary's engagement ring and athletic figure. The staid reporter's jacket was neatly stored on a hangar by the door in the early Autumn heat, and Mary looked striking in her white shirt contrasting with her coffee-brown skin. "So, how is it with you and Jaggi? Any… interesting developments?" She winked.

Mary Melody smiled back, looking her friend in her brown eyes – Babs' blue contact lenses had gone the way of her pink ear-ribbons that Summer. "I'm making my way in the reporting business. That's our career, mine and Jaggi's. But if despite everything there's a little zebra-striped diversion turning up one day… if it's next year or next month, I'll be very happy with that. I've kept in touch with just about everybody. They're making news, I'm reporting news."

"Oh? I'm all ears." Babs's long pink ears twitched eagerly. "Everyone's doing well?"

"Umm." Mary went to the briefcase hung up by her jacket and pulled out a tablet computer. "I did this article on Concord Condor last week – he's over in WashingToon, he's doing very well." She tapped a few keys then handed it over to Babs, whose ears went right up at the sight of a familiar dim-looking buzzard enthusiastically shaking feather-hands with various doves and hawks whose beaks often featured on the news.

"_Time for a new look in politics_," Babs read "_voters are tired of politicians who they only discover are idiots after taking such trouble to elect them_. _The new party candidate promises the voters will never be deceived that way_." She dipped one ear. "Hmm. Sounds reasonable. No matter how badly it ends up, at least you can't say you're surprised."

"His party had to try something, with who he's running against. Look at what the opposition found." Mary flipped the page to show another familiar face; she and Babs winced at the sight of the stringy-haired, sallow-faced toon human who she recalled all too well from their first Summer vacation. It seemed there was a good chance that the new face in political power would be wearing a hockey-mask and frenziedly wielding power tools.

"_With Mister Hitcher, we have another crossover hit scoring big points with both young and old_," she read out, her fur bristling in panic. "_He brings in the direct 'chainsaw-wielding maniac' home demographic, the younger 'chainsaw-wielding maniacs are sorta cool' vote and the 'let's not annoy that chainsaw-wielding maniac, honey' mass voting public_." Babs gave a theatrical sigh. "That's what I love about our great Nation," she declared "absolutely anyone can get to be President!"

"Or a movie star." Mary nodded. "So… what was it like? I heard your film "Blue Indus" is a religious film? Isn't that a bit off track for you?"

"Oh, not over there…" Babs winked. "We played actors doing a film – which was pretty circular. Buster played an actor playing a wandering deity – and their deities come on down to party! Wait till you see the scenes with him as Krishna and all those pretty milkmaids – Blue-boy was perfect for the part, that's the traditional fur colour they wanted anyway. It's a Deity thing."

"All those milkmaids? Straight off your bunnymoon and you didn't get jealous?" Mary tried to keep the amazement out of her voice.

Babs stood, concentrated for a second then spin-changed into a dozen classically attired Indian bunny maidens, all very different, one after another. She transformed back to her regular self and sat down, panting with effort. "Phew! That takes it out of you. The ones in the close-ups were all me. They had a famous lady singer dub in the songs – but that's OK, everyone does that out there."

"A one-girl harem." Mary nodded, impressed. She struck a pose herself. "He who is tired of Babs, is tired of bunnies," she proclaimed.

Babs snickered. "It'll be a long time before that happens. And I'll tell you something else I found out about what happened when I spin-change. Better still, I'll show you. Just a sec." She stepped over to the bathroom and stood in the shower cubicle. Without turning on the water, she spin-changed – and a second later, a completely drenched Lady Gaga rabbit impersonation was grabbing a towel. "Ooh! I got caught out in the monsoon like this yesterday on the way to the airport – and I didn't want to be dripping all over First Class."

The human's dark eyes went wide. Spin-changing was a rare Toon talent to the degree Babs had it; most folk worked hard enough to develop a single "transform". Being able to turn into anything she had in mind (and Babs' mind was scarily strange at times) was one of the things that had won her the almost unknown top academic honours of '_summa cum loony'_. Mary's keen mind worked fast. "When you changed back… the form you changed out of stays – just as it was the second you left it?"

Babs nodded happily. "To the second. I checked!" She Spun into a Nurse Babs outfit that would have the pulse rate of any male toon soaring. "This costume comes with a stopwatch. It works fine while I'm wearing it. When I'm not – the clock stops. No time passes." She paused. "And when I fall asleep, I flip back to normal. Nobody ever woke up still in a spin-change."

Mary Melody had never claimed to be top of the class in "wicked humour" back at Acme Loo, but she could see there were certain possibilities. Although there was nobody around, she whispered in Babs' long ear.

Babs nodded, and snickered. "Oh yes. That's going to prove very handy, one way or another. There's some forms I took Buster was very keen on. I'd show you which but first… they really, really need a shower!"

* * *

A few miles away on the placid waters of Lake Acme, another two of the Looniversity graduates were enjoying their afternoon. Fifty yards offshore there was a tethered platform where an oddly matched pair was relaxing. One was a tall, thin grey-furred toon coyote with a studious look, currently wearing a pair of red swimming shorts and looking at the online ACME catalogue on a waterproof E-reader.

Reclining on an airbed with one foot trailing in the cool water, was someone very different. Where Calamity Coyote was dusty grey, Marcia Martian was black – an utter and unearthly black that gave her the appearance of a hole in the film or a statue cast from a solid piece of the abyssal voids between the farthest stars. One expected to see light bending in to be swallowed by her form.

""Like, way cool, daddy-o," Marcia looked over the coyote's shoulder and noted what he was reading. "Chill! Got the frothy water. That catalogue's a happening thing."

Calamity blushed slightly as he scanned through the pages on giant slapstick seltzer bottles. _Would you like one for your birthday?_ His raised sign seemed hesitant.

Marcia's long lashed eyes went wide, and she nodded. Her eyes were the only part of her face – actually her whole body – that were actually visible. From under a bathing cap a shoulder-length mop of red-orange hair spilled down to her shoulders, and the cap itself had a fetching pink bow. Being a Martian, in her Earth outfits she had to concentrate on showing off what the books called her '_Tertiary sexual characteristics'_ as other aspects of Martians functioned more like a Yale lock and a Zenith carburettor respectively. "You know how that hits me, hep-cat."

Calamity took in the scene; the acres of fresh water and bright sunshine. It was pleasant enough to him – but the scientist extrapolated what it must mean to Marcia, whose people used drops of water as currency. Regular fresh water was a marvel to Martians, but that was not the ultimate. It had been a pure accident the year before in the Gags and Props 701 slapstick humour class when Plucky had ducked and Marcia had been soaked with a jet of seltzer water – freezing cold and heavily carbonated, just the way it used to be found on Mars. The effect on Marcia had been memorable, starting her metabolism shifting down a pathway that had not been seen since water flowed in the old canals of her homeland.

_If you keep this up you'll be a 7 2/3 by mid-Winter here. Next Martian year, maybe an 8!_ Calamity's sign somehow expressed awe. They were both post-graduate students, not at Acme Loo (which did not offer such courses) but at the National Pie Accelerator Complex in Akron Ow-Hi-Oww, to where they would be returning after meeting Professor Coyote. Marcia was his research project, and even for a long-lived Toon there was a lifetime's work involved in studying her development. Martians lived for centuries, their fundamental model sheets changing with age and environmental factors as the climate changed wildly; though Marcia had once told Babs her people had eleven and two thirds genders, that was only half of the story_. Enough carbonated water and – that'll be a sight to see_.

Marcia probably grinned, but with her Colour Out Of Space complexion earthly eyes could not detect it. "Uncle Marvin he's only met one Eight, and she's old. It'd be hep to be a Queen type!"

* * *

Only a mile or so away from the happy scene, the swamps upstream of Lake Acme steamed in the early Autumn heat. In a well-tended part of the reed beds, a small island housed a traditional open nest woven of reed and willow, where a green duck sat alone. Or not quite alone; under his green feathered rump a careful observer could have made out the forms of two large, pale eggs.

"This is ridiculous!" Plucky Duck rose to address the uncaring wetlands, as he looked around the nesting site. "Here's me, natural star and hero to the nation – doing this!" He winced slightly. It had not been a good month for him. For that matter, he had been treated shamefully since July when some deeply secret conspiracy had denied his rightful place as top-scoring head of the class at graduation and handed him a minimal Pass mark. Since then things had only gone downhill – and living in a swamp as he did to begin with, that took some doing.

As he grumpily sat back on the nest, his perceptions began to swim as he recalled the month before. Oddly enough, just like… a flashback.

Monday:

Shirley buried the last crystal of the nineteen exactly positioned underground in a complex pattern around the geometric centre of the freshly built nest, and gave a sigh of relief. "That's, the most harmonious configuration I can make. Should give you and our eggs the best protection I can give while I'm away – so you totally won't need that junk." Her bill twitched up disdainfully at the baseball bat strapped onto Plucky's rucksack – the only luggage he had been allowed to bring.

"Have a heart, Shirl!" Plucky pleaded. "We have a house! It's not a mile away! It's no mansion but it has a roof and a door – and my stereo and TV set! Mains power! Hot water!"

Shirley sighed, but her expression remained stern. "We've been through this like how many times, Plucky? I looked at twenty-three energy alignments around here and this is the most auspicious place for our hatchlings." Her expression softened at that idea. "You know I have to go. This is the very best I can do for you."

"Razza-fracking Feng Shui…" Plucky groused. There was no point in merely thinking such things; with Shirley's mind-reading powers he might as well honestly say it. "What about your house? That's got a door and a roof – and isn't that up to your beak in protective spells and mystic stuff?"

"Here, Plucky." Shirley said firmly, pointing at the nest. "This is our nest, the one we built." She hesitated. "Later on – we might expand it. A woven thatch roof, maybe. But our chicks are going to be hatched as part of the ecosystem."

"You just want me out of extension cord range of mains power." Plucky looked up defiantly.

Shirley turned her slightly glowing blue eyes at her mate levelly; her aura had returned, grumbling somewhat, once their eggs had been laid and Shirley's metabolism had stopped craving fish and shellfish. "No incubator, we agreed. And no vegging out watching evil horror films on TV or playing war games on your Numbmindo console. Imagine what that'd do to our hatchlings' auras!" She shuddered.

"So what am I going to do, all this time when you're off getting all the fame and glory? As for war games – you're a fine one to talk." Plucky looked up with undisguised envy at the uniform Shirley wore. Strictly speaking it was just the jacket; a parsimonious Government had long ago decreed that serving Toons who normally went bare-tailed in public would not be issued needless pants at national expense.

Ensign McLoon, newest recruit to the Abnatural Forces unit known only as Unit Four Plus Two, sighed. "Count your blessings." And with that she was off: there was a bright orange Abnatural Forces helicopter just landed in the middle of Acme Park waiting for her. True, its garish logo claimed it belonged to '_Tears from Heaven – cloud-seeding and wedding celebrations R Us. Bridal Showers a speciality_!' Her plain green uniform claimed she was a '_Parks Department Junior Warden'_ for that matter – but Unit Four Plus Two was just that sort of a unit.

Tuesday:

Plucky's vigil had already felt like a ten-year stretch (and in a Toon prison, that much stretching would at least qualify him for basketball teams by the time he got out) when the peace of the swamp was broken. He looked up, hope in his heart at the sight of two familiar faces – the stocky rooster Fowlmouth, and the whirling Chaos spiral Dizzy Devil.

"Hey, Pluckster!" Fowlmouth stuck out a white feather-hand to shake. "Me and Diz stopped to say so long – we're in a da-gum band, we're heading out on tour."

"Dizzy play drums. Dizzy play steel drums. With hammers!" The purple Tasmanian Devil's grin could have swallowed a watermelon.

"Oh great. Oh joy." Plucky's hard-to-genetically-explain teeth gritted as he tried to smile back. "You've made a record already?"

"Da-gum right! We gotta whole album out online. We couldn't get a songwriter to work for nuthin' so we hadta do covers of freakin' old Christmas Carols – it went viral last week. Gee, who'd a thought it?" Fowlmouth shrugged. "That's the music biz for ya."

"Dizzy do dumb old carols in Death Metal style! Yaaa!" Dizzy nodded manically. "We rich! Now we go on tour and party and throw limos into hotel swimming pools every night!"

"I'm da-gum sorry you can't join us, Pluckster," Fowlmouth sighed. "You're ace on keyboards, we coulda used you. But – ya gots better things to do now." He shook feather-hands with Plucky, a tear coming to his eye. "I hadta come by and bury the hatchet between us, okay? The best bird won. Chee, you and Shirley… you oughta be called, Lucky Duck."

"Dizzy see Shirley yesterday – in uniform. Shirley look hot girl now!" Dizzy nodded, ignoring the sharp elbow Fowlmouth drove into his ribs. "But Dizzy got a hotter one. Mitzi dances on stage with band. Look great in video."

"So you'd have hadta stay behind anyway," Fowlmouth shook his head sadly. "We gots another three girls in da band. I mean, what kinda moron would risk making Shirley jealous? Shirley. What a girl." His rooster comb drooped as he shook his head, and straightened up. "I'd give my da-gum beak and feathers to swap places with ya, Pluckster. But hey! That's Fate for you. And boy, you sure got dealt four aces." With that, they left. Neither noticed a certain green mallard slowly turning purple as he held his breath.

A minute later, a plume of special-effects steam rose above the swamp as if something had suffered a runaway meltdown. A scorched green feather rose a mile high on the thermals.

Wednesday:

Even in August in California, whenever it was dramatically suitable it rained. A thin cloud of steam rose from Plucky's feathers as he still visibly fumed. "I have a house! Shirley has a house! I oughta up sticks and move… us." He ceased to steam as he began to scheme, the energies diverted elsewhere. "Yeah. That's it. I'd still be on the nest like I promised – but in the dry." Mentally he sketched rebuilding the reed wall of his hut into a canopy covering the relocated nest, within reach of his stereo and his games console. His feather-fingers twitched in withdrawal symptoms; he had not been on his Numbmindo system in weeks.

Suddenly, he sighed. There was no fooling Shirley that way. For a New Ager, she had some surprisingly old-fashioned values, mostly about a Toon keeping their word no matter what. That was why she had joined up; she had promised it to the suave and enigmatic Colonel Fenix _(admit it, Plucky_, he forced his ego back determinedly _you think he's pretty cool and you want to be doing all that stuff yourself_).

_Yeah – and I should. Drakes do that. They don't sit on eggs. She's the one who should be here! I should never have let her sweet-talk me into that dumb deal_. He thought disconsolately of the ACME memory-foam pillow in his house; the salesman had not actually said putting the textbooks under it would let him absorb their contents while he slept rather than sweating on the hard grind of studying – but it was memory foam, what else would it do? _If it'd had worked, I'd have got the top marks and there wouldn't have been a thing Shirley could do about it. She'd be here, and I could tell that stuffed-shirt Colonel to go fish. Maybe I can sue ACME. So what if Calamity and Professor Coyote never managed it? Well, I'm smarter than both of them together..._

Just then, the phone rang. The rain never bothered it; he was a waterfowl and needed a waterproof model whatever the weather. A broad grin came to Plucky's beak as he recognised his Hollywood agent. "Mister Rosengeldensteinengeberger! Great to hear from you!"

"Plucky, my boy! Have I got a part for you?" For once, Mr. R was in an expansive mood. "They're casting for a voice actor at Flixar – you've got just the voice they want. I spent all morning telling them so. So come and schlep it along to their studios at Palm Beach. Auditions in two days' time. The film's going to be massive. Whadda ya say?"

Plucky opened up his bill, his heart hammering visibly – then stopped. This was the kind of call he had been waiting for all year. But there was a matter of a nest and eggs between him and accepting. "Can't they do it over the phone? If it's a voice part anyway?"

There was a disapproving clucking from the far end. "Plucky, they want to meet you. Rule One, be nice to the studio, be sure they don't have to be nice to you. When can you get there?"

Plucky groaned. "I can't."

"Plucky, my boy. This is the film industry. You want to start, you need to hit the ground running – there's nothing fresher in your resume than last month's Looniversity degree… and it's not the tastiest I ever saw. I'm in business for you – but ten percent of "no" is what sort of business?" Mr. R switched on the video screen to wag a finger at the reluctant star. "Think about this. I'll call you tomorrow. Be in."

The rain continued to pour all afternoon. That evening, the sun came out as Plucky heard the distant sound of a car stopping on the nearest road two hundred yards away. "Company!" For a few minutes his spirits were quite lifted until he saw just had come slumming.

"Well, hello Mister Family Man." Roderick Rat was elegantly dressed in hand-woven hunting tweeds that cost more than every piece of clothing Plucky had ever owned. "Sweet Margot and I heard about your – promotion." He gave a mock sigh. "We're off on our travels. I had thought of asking you along – golf caddies are so expensive where we're bound for – but it looks as if you've better things to do."

Margot Mallard took in the sight, her eyes flashing. "We just had to say goodbye. And – hello to the new additions." She waved flippantly towards the nest.

Roderick snickered. "I'll leave you two to your tender farewells." His professionally polished tail swished as he strode off to marvel at how the other 99.99 percent somehow managed to live.

For a few seconds Plucky and Margot looked at each other, taking in the sight. Margot wore a precisely tailored business skirt suit that still managed to show off her stunning figure. Her purple head-feathers were piled up in an artistically arranged coiffure that nowhere in Acme Acres was qualified to have created. Margot smiled.

"Well, isn't that a sight." Her minimal tail feathers twitched, as she took in the view. "Plucky – you and Shirley actually wove that nest yourselves? With your bare hands?"

Plucky gulped. He nodded, his eyes crossing as he looked up at Margot. "Sure! It's what we birds do, you know?"

Margot raised an eyebrow. She took in a deep breath, about to unleash one of the devastating one-liners that had made her the terror of Perfecto – and then abruptly changed her mind. Looking around to confirm nobody was watching, she sat down on one of the dryer parts of the island, just out of reach of the nest. "Quaint. Such a sweet, old-fashioned notion. But on the other hand… a rather... intriguing idea." She paused. "And actual eggs, like dinosaurs used to lay. My grandmother was the last one in my family who hatched from an eggshell. I'm not… set up that way." She took a deep breath, her tailored jacket straining tight.

Plucky nodded, unable to tear his eyes away as Margot leaned forwards seductively. "I can see that."

Margot gave a throaty chuckle. She propped her elbow on her knee and rested her bill on her fist, her gaze boring deep into Plucky's eyes. "Oh, I've always been grateful to Great-Grandmother and her tastes in dates. I have fine feathers on the outside, and inside – rather more evolved. And so very much nicer. Even for another avian. Danforth thought so, and he was always boasting about being a pure pedigree bird. Rather tiresomely towards the end."

"The end? What happened to him?" Plucky had heard Margot was the star pupil of Perfecto's Hatta Mari, who held various world records for Toon fatalities in the femme fatale stakes.

Margot shrugged. "Perfecto graduation happened. Or not, in his case. There's never room at the top for everyone. Maybe you'll find him begging for change at the bus depot someday, since I cleaned him right out." Her eyes went wide in delight seeing the shock on Plucky's beak. "Oh, yes. That's the way it goes at Perfecto. It's very like… you spend hours playing 'Toon Tank Online', don't you?"

"Yeah." Plucky's feathers suddenly bristled. "But how did you know?"

"Oh, please. We have detailed dossiers on all of you. I could look up your password and scrub all your scores if I cared. Graduating from Perfecto is like… in the game, when you and the opposition surprise each other. Surprise, look what's coming round the corner at point-blank. You both have a round in the breech. What happens?

"You win or die." The green mallard felt his head-feathers standing on end, even as he felt his eyes drawn to Margot's. There was a cold, reptilian intellect there despite her smouldering looks and obvious curvaceous mammal ancestry.

"Mmm. First one fires and hits, wins. Just like at Perfecto - no second place prizes. Dear Danforth! If he'd been just that tiny bit smarter – well." For a second Margot's façade slipped, as she looked around the swamp. The phrase _'you don't have to be nice on the way up – because you're not coming down'_ was so instilled in the Perfecto ethos that it was rarely spoken aloud; it never had to be. And yet – the swamp had a certain naïve charm, and toons whose pockets had been cleaned out could still weave a free reed nest and fish for clams, she reflected. She realised with an inward shudder that she could have ended up somewhere like this. There were no tears to be shed for Danforth wherever he had ended up; he would have shed none for her. "And you, Plucky – you won the main prize." She gestured towards the eggs. "I should congratulate you. But I'm surprised to see you stuck here."

Plucky hesitated. He had told himself that this was just a temporary glitch in his career – that Shirley would never make it in the military, even if it was Abnatural Forces. He had been sure that she'd be back in a week, either quitting or thrown out. Instead he drew himself up proudly. "My girl's serving in an important job. Making sure all the stuff in the horror films stays fiction."

"Oh, bravo!" Margot relaxed, grinning. "And you volunteered to hold the fort and look after the rugrats. I hope you're getting plenty of sleep. Because as soon as those eggs hatch – that'll be the end of that." She smiled in delight at the expression on Plucky's face. _He hasn't thought about it. He actually hasn't thought about how it's going to be_. "Oh, Plucky! I'm no mind-reader but don't tell me – you're guarding those eggs like they were just a pair of valuable pet rocks? That's the prize and the future you won. Squalling brats and two a.m. feeds, used diapers from next month onwards and tantrums pretty soon after. No bright lights and cheering fans for Plucky Duck now. No Emmies or Oscars in the family – unless Shirley decides to call her chicks that."

"She'll be back! And soon. I know it." Plucky strove to keep his tone confident and defiant despite the rapid sinking feeling in his feathered body. Against a Perfecto graduate he might as well be bleeding in a shark-tank and expect the sharks not to notice, and well he knew it.

Their eyes met, searchingly. Margot's silvery laugh was like tinkling icicles falling into the cold darkness of a crevasse. "Bravo again! So, did she hand you her crystal ball 'for the duration'? It's not up to her now. She could end up anywhere in the world, for as long as it takes. And if that Martian from your class gets a panic call from home and the folk in WashingToon want to help out against the Space Spectres of Olympus Mons – into the rocket she and her squad go." She looked at the mallard from under half-closed eyelids. "Poor Plucky. I hear she didn't even bother to marry you. Just dumps her eggs in your lap and it's arrivederchi." _So long, sucker_, was her unspoken thought.

"Shirley's got a job she has to do first. But she'll be back." The mallard stuck his beak out, but winced inside. Even after attending the Bunny's wedding and Fifi's with Rhubella, Shirley had refused his offer of a wedding ring. "_Like, you're my mate, Plucky, and these are our eggs,_" he could still hear her annoyed tones "_and there's no church, temple or judge in the world that can add anything to that_."

"Mmm. I hope so. But think about it." Margot shook her head wonderingly. "She'll be amongst her own kind now, spook-hunters and mystics and psychics, oh my! Going into danger, sharing risk and victory. That pushes toons together, you know. Pretty soon someone at home's getting that official military FM-177 "Dear John" form letter. Of course, I hope I'm wrong." Margot sighed deeply. She sat back, enjoying watching the expressions wash over the mallard's face. Her elegantly groomed tail-feathers twitched.

_ Well, Danforth had the attractions of money and position – but I'm not short of that. Roderick is amusing, though we both know only one of us will walk away in one piece. Plucky has nothing like that. A mallard who is actually no threat is a very… exotic idea, even for me. And he surprisingly has something of – interest now_. Margot felt her tail feathers twitching, as a delightful idea came to her. She relaxed, shifting to a more comfortable pose and feeling the drake's eyes drawn to her assets.

"It must be an awfully – lonely job." She shook her head, trying to recall from her acting classes what sympathy sounded like. "Everyone's gone and left you. No lights, camera, action. Certainly no action." Her eyes scanned the nest; it was certainly built to sleep two in comfort, and was lined with a mix of easily regenerated green and white feathers. "You must have plucked yourself bald to line that nest!" _And that loon-girl must have looked like an oven-ready broiler_, the delightful image came to mind. _Oh, how I'd have liked to have seen that_…

"Lonely? Who, Me?" Plucky gave a nervous laugh. "This is my home neighbourhood! Acme Loo wasn't my whole life. I have other friends, neighbours! Gladys and Gracie drop round with supplies every other day. Look around." He gestured at the reed swamp, which suddenly was as quiet and deserted as the far side of the moon. "Heh."

"Well." Margot undid the top button of her jacket. There was a quiet pop. She laughed inwardly, looking at the drake's expression as he realised underneath she had stopped "concealing". Though Margot did not share Plucky or Shirley's dress sense and walk around with her bare tail-feathers on show, her Toon ancestry qualified her to if she wished. "I can see just one single, solitary mallard. Very single. And nobody else around to see." She nodded at the eggs. "And they won't tell."

Plucky's eyes crossed; his beak dropped open to hit the floor in an Avery #15 Take. "Margot? I…"

Margot Mallard stepped towards him, almost touching the nest. At the last second she halted, recalling the advice from her mentor – _'if it looks too easy, look harder for the trap'_. She stroked a hand through her coiffure, dislodging a purple feather – and dropped it on the nest.

There was a brilliant flash, as if vengeful lightning had struck, blasting the trespassing feather to ash.

Margot threw her head back and laughed in delight. "Oh, yes!" Her tail-feathers spread wide, her eyes shining as she read Plucky's astonishment. "You actually didn't know about that. Makes you wonder what other little surprises you're sitting on that Shirley didn't tell you about." Her eyes flicked over the eggs, and she thrilled to see Plucky's panicked gaze following hers. She drew herself up, casting him a smouldering glance – though not as smouldering as she would have been had she stepped into that nest for two. "Well – my estimation of her just went up a notch. Maybe more."

With that she turned and strutted back towards the distant limousine, a satisfied smile on her bill. _A girl with the smarts and the powers to do something like that, chose him. And even went as far as carrying his eggs. That makes things interesting. And she left him – legally unclaimed. I wonder why?_

Margot turned back to blow the dazed-looking mallard a kiss before rounding the corner of the reed banks out of sight. _Mmmm. It's an old-fashioned notion but - he gives good egg_.

Thursday:

Evidently the Great Scriptwriter Above had decided some extra weather hardships would add amusingly to Plucky's trials. After the rain, the full August sunshine beat down mercilessly.

"The heat! The heat!" Plucky stood clear of the eggs and spun into a classic Foreign Legion uniform. Unfortunately he had visualised it all too accurately. "Whoever chose them dark-blue overcoats for the middle of a desert?" He mopped a steaming brow with the sleeve before shrugging out of the coat and rigging it with sticks to make an improvised sunshade.

There was a giggle behind him. He turned and sighed in relief. "Gracie! Gladys!" He recognised his neighbours, two toon ducks who like most of the population had not gone to Acme Loo. "It's great to see you!" The sack of groceries each carried were also a very welcome sight; he and Shirley had arranged for regular supply runs while he was nest-bound.

Gracie smiled. She and Gladys were purebred plain avians with curly hair-effect head feathers down to their shoulders; hers was light brown while Gladys' was auburn. "We all missed you around the old pool. Are you settling in?"

Plucky struck a heroic pose. "Oh, I'll live. Sacrificing my youth and beauty to stern and noble duty..." He gave a stoic sigh.

Gladys and Gracie looked at each other. "We think it's a shame too," Gladys confided. "We were so looking forwards to seeing your name in lights."

"So many films you were meant to star in! We've been hearing you tell us about it for years." Gracie nodded. She went to put the groceries sack inside the nest – and her elbow brushed the nest's rim.

"No!" Plucky threw himself across the nest in an effort to stop her, the Foreign Legion uniform becoming virtual again and blinking out of existence as his whole concentration was suddenly elsewhere. Gracie flinched back, grabbing at the nest edge in an effort to avoid falling flat on her tail-feathers.

Nothing happened. No vengeful lightning charred her to Chinese-style crispy duck slices. Plucky blinked, looking at his neighbours. "Heh. Just… practicing my better-than-cat-like reflexes. For the martial arts roles I'll have. Gotta stay sharp!"

Gladys giggled. "I told you, Gracie. He's a duck who just won't give up! I wish I had your talent, Plucky."

"So do I," Gracie sighed. "Five years at Acme Looniversity, what they must have taught you! I can see what you won, though. It's not one of the famous glittering prizes – but it's worth a lot more. It's worth everything." She looked down at the eggs, a dreamy expression on her bill.

Plucky looked up from the large grocery bag he was intently rummaging in. "Say what?" He seized something at the bottom and held his prize aloft. "A candy bar! Oh thank you, thank you!"

Gracie smiled. "It's not breaking the diet sheet Shirley gave us – it's calorie-free. They're promoting it everywhere. 'Luxovice Lightweight'. It's on all the TV ads."

"TV. Remind me, won't you." Plucky sat back on the hand-built nest, sagging slightly. "This is the twenty-first century and I'm stuck in a nest with no mains power. What energy Shirley's plugged it into will even 'fowl up' battery powered stuff, apart from the phone she hexed. I've tried."

"That's a shame. But at least it's a nice day to sunbathe. We've got to get back now, though. See you Saturday!" With that Gracie waved, picked up the returning garbage bag from their last supply run and headed out, feather-hand in hand with Gladys back towards their empty nest.

"No TV sets. Hah. Still – there are a few traces of civilisation. Like this!" Plucky held the candy bar as if it was gold bullion. He had eaten nothing like it since July; dining with Shirley still involved far too much humanely harvested free-range seaweed for his taste, and having all the money she had been in charge of the grocery orders.

Just then the phone rang. His expression as he grabbed it went from joy to worry in two frames as he saw who it was and guessed why he would be calling. "Mister Rosengeldensteinengeberger. Hello!"

The raven had switched on his video phone and looked at his client reprovingly. "Plucky, Plucky. Today's the deadline. The folk at Flixar want to see you, guy. Did poor Solly Rosengeldensteinengeberger here wear his tail-feathers out for nothing in their waiting room?"

Plucky tried and failed to stop his head-feathers bristling out in panic_. Talk about between a rock and a hard place_, he inwardly winced. _Sure, this nest's not too rocky – but Hollywood is a hard place all right_. "Something's come up. I'll have to write you a rain cheque."

His Agent sighed. "It's one thing to turn down a project when you've better things to do. But tell me, bubs, have you?"

Plucky reached for comfort to the candy bar – and dropped it. Grabbing for it he let go the phone – which fell into the nest, the camera getting a clear view of the two well-cared-for eggs.

"Ooops – sorry." Plucky retrieved the phone. "About that appointment…"

Suddenly Mister R's beak was wreathed in a smile. "You shoulda told me! Hey, I take it all back. So, you do have better things to do. I'm a family man myself. Boy, they'll run you ragged for ten hard years. And then…"

"Yes?" Plucky turned pale. Ten years was more that you got for grand theft of the less fashionable autos, and jails had at least Mystery Meat at mealtimes.

Mister R laughed. "Then you find out your troubles are just beginning! I'll keep your details on file – just in case. Regards to your good wife!"

"But I…" Plucky's beak opened in shock – but the screen was blank already. He stared at the blank handset.

A plume of steam began to arise from the steamed mallard. "Why, that cheap phony… and he's about as kosher as a bacon and blue cheese sandwich… with oysters on the side." Through sheer fluke Plucky had once discovered his agent's real name was Frank Johnson, but like many folk working either side of the cameras in Hollywood he had changed it for professional reasons in one direction or another. Plucky had always planned to pull out the secret as a trump card when he really needed one – he was now furious he had left it too late.

Friday:

It rained. Neither Mr. R nor anybody else phoned or called on the nest in the swamp. A soaked mallard sat on the nest from dawn till dusk and counted the raindrops. At noon his self-control snapped and he reached for the candy bar he had been saving till sundown; in the groceries there had been one included per day.

"Ahh. The miracles of modern science." He wiped the raindrops off the wrapper, and regarded the confectionary fondly. "Luxovice Lightweight," he read "Using the latest technology we offer you the full taste of chocolate – with no calories whatsoever." Hurriedly he stripped off the wrapper and gorged; for a change the advertising seemed to be completely true at least about the taste. "Well, it's not made by Acme – and that's a change too," he shrugged. The manufacturer was an unfamiliar company, "Resorblus Inc."

At half past twelve there was still a soaked mallard sitting on a lonely nest. The difference now was – he now had a massive craving for another Luxovice Lightweight bar, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Plucky's flashback snapped back from the unpleasant past to the unpromising present, as a distant hail alerted him. His eyes lit up at the sight of a blue and a pink bunny making their way through the reeds. "Oh boy! Babysitters!"

"Hiya, Pluckster," Buster had shed his white safari suit and wore a tan sports jacket. The buck had trimmed down considerably in the tropical heat, and eight hours a day of vigorous Indian dance had left him and Babs visibly well-toned. "How are you keeping?"

"Like a lettuce on the shelf, nothing to look at but its own sell-by date. Now I know how an egg-cosy feels," Plucky growled.

Babs' eyes grew misty, spotting the eggs. "Oh my. Aren't they the most adorable? What'll they be?"

"Waterfowl, we can only hope," Buster mused.

Plucky sniffed. "Just you watch – there'll be a boy mallard and a loon girl, you bet."

Babs looked down at the eggs. "Bet? You mean you didn't ask Shirley? She'd know. She'd have known all along."

"Oh, ha ha. It is to laugh. I know how these conventions work. What else could they be?" The green mallard cast her a scornful glance.

The bunnies exchanged looks. Exactly how Buster's ears managed to semaphore _Plucky never paid much attention in biology class,_ was hard for a non–rabbit to follow.

Babs gave a wistful sigh. "Bunnies and eggs just go together. Easter or not, it's a culture thing. If you want a half hour break... could I try nest-sitting?"

Plucky was out of the nest so fast there were no intervening frames. "Yes! Yes! It's a cosy nest – you'll love it! Try it out as long as you like – feel free to enjoy all the... facilities."

"Such as they are," Buster commented drily as one spin-change later Nurse Babs gently stepped into Plucky's place and sat cross-legged, the eggs shielded under her skirt. "I take it you could use a walk."

Plucky laughed maniacally. "A walk! I could use a migration. Some seabirds make it to Antarctica from here. Now I know why." He stretched his back, smoothing out his tail-feathers as he walked around the corner of the reed groves. "I'd forgotten there was another view in the world."

Buster raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, Plucky – how can it be that bad? You've got everything in life you ever asked for." _There's a warning proverb about that_, he thought.

Plucky looked around fearfully. "How bad? Do you know what Shirley did to me? Sure, I'd said I'd do anything I could to help when the eggs came but…"

Buster looked at him. "Well?"

"Shirley grabbed hold of my mind. She was in a mind-meld with me the whole time. I felt – everything she did. Every second of it. It was horrible." The mallard shuddered uncontrollably, eyes wide in panic. "It's true what they say – there are Things that Man was Not Meant to Know."

End Chapter One


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Monday:

"This is like, totally awesome," Ensign Shirley McLoon looked up at the massive aisles of the warehouse, stencilled wooden crates of various sizes piled up on steel shelves stretching endlessly into the gloom. It was a secret warehouse on an extra-secret base located on a corner of four maps that for some reason had been mis-surveyed when the country had first been mapped; there was a part of the planet that actually had no map reference.

"They call this place Verlorensburg. The Lost City. It covers acres, and I don't mean Acme." A tall goose stood at one side with a clipboard. "What's in it? We don't know. Nobody really does, any more. This is where the Government files things it doesn't know what to do with." He tapped the clipboard with a feather-finger. "But it's Government property, and some of it's useful. Anything more than sixty years old and labelled "Top Secret" we can look at; there'll be nobody still around who has the clearance to open it. If they remember what it was in the first place."

"We can just – take stuff?" Next to him was a magpie girl, dressed like Shirley in one of the Junior Park Ranger jackets that recruits to Unit Four Plus Two were wearing that season.

Clarke Gander nodded. "If we can find a use for it. But be careful, Ensign Angelique – there's cursed ancient items, UFO tech, cursed UFO tech… you name it. Some of it doesn't like being disturbed."

"Coolest!" Angelina Angelique's long black tail feathers spread in excitement. "If I'd had some of that stuff last year when I worked for myself – I wouldn't be here."

"Mondo strange. I can't read your aura." Since meeting her the previous day, Shirley had been curious about her new comrade. She was evidently a psychic, and a powerful one. She even spoke the same language, having mentioned a "_way totally cool channelling session with my guiding spirits_". But even amongst the vastly different talents comprising Unit Four Plus Two, there was something definitely strange about her. "Are you an ancient Toon, from Two-tone town?"

"Like, gag me with a spoon!" Angelina looked at the loon in disgust. "Me, some grody forgotten 1920's sketch? Just because I'm naturally black and white doesn't mean I'm like, monochrome." She stuck out a definitely red tongue at Shirley.

Clarke Gander sighed. It was meant to be cats that were hard to herd; birds of a feather supposedly flocked together. "Ladies, please. Here's a shelf of the right age. Now – let's take a look before we open the boxes. We've had a lot of nasty surprises."

"Okay. Copacetic." Shirley pressed her feather-fingers to the dusty wooden crate and extended her aura to explore inside. "Coolest! It's a totally retro 1930's Super-hero outfit. It's powered down but if you wear it and hit the belt buckle it… ewww. Now I see it. It's really an Alien parasite disguised as a costume, gah!" She shook her head, her aura silently gagging and spitting as if at an awful psychic taste in her mouth. "It's a form-fitting costume... if I'd put that on next to my bare feathers and activated it…"

Angelina smiled. Shirley had noticed she smiled a lot, and often for no obvious reason. There were obviously a lot of thoughts in the magpie's head she did not share with the world.

"Take your time," Clarke stood well back, looking up at the shelves as if they were buildings in a hostile city that might hold snipers. "Angelique, found anything?"

The magpie smiled, and tapped a long box. "This one. I want this one. It's calling to me, promising me all kinds of cool stuff."

"Not always a good thing around here. But open it up, I'll cover you." Sergeant Clarke Gander (recently promoted to match his actual service record including the missions spent with his body in a coma) raised an eyebrow.

Angelina wielded the Enchanted Crowbar of Wrecking (+5) that a previous expedition had found in the warehouse, and popped open the old pine crate. Inside was what looked at first like an elbow-length fur glove – tipped with claws.

"Like, gross!" Shirley's eyes went wide. "That's some monster's arm skinned into a glove! Put that junk back, bury it. It's just dripping bad karma."

"Mmm." Angelina stroked the glove. There was a burst of energy on the astral plane that Shirley could not follow in detail – like a pair of speeded-up conversations. "I think I'll choose – this one." With that she raised her arm and slid the glove on. It seemed to wriggle slightly, re-sizing itself to fit – then slowly faded into the magpie's feathers like water into sand.

Shirley's own feathers bristled. Her aura could still spot the presence of the claws on Angelina's feather-hand even though her eyes could not. "You'll be mondo sorry. If that's not from something way out in the dark side of the Force, call me a buzzard."

Immaterial claws popped out of Angelina's left hand. "Always wanted these. I can make some other shoppers mondo sorry with them."

"Only in the cause of Duty. And only when ordered to – I hope." Clarke said sternly.

Angelina shrugged. "Sure, whatever. All that stuff. But we get leave sometimes, and this thing isn't going to come off." She seemed oddly pleased at the prospect.

"Eww. Angelina. When your parents named you they must have had a major sense of humour." Shirley shook her head and turned away. Her aura peered into the other crates on the shelf. In a few minutes her eyes lit up. "This one – there's an amulet that's totally got my name on it!"

Clarke Gander wielded the crowbar and in a minute Shirley was gazing enraptured at an ancient Babylonian amulet, the first eyes to see it since 1927 according to the faded notes inside the box. "That's it? It doesn't seem to do much."

"It's not some way shallow special-effect artefact, all lights and sound. But I predict it'll be useful, fer sure." Shirley hung the amulet around her neck.

Just then Clarke Gander stiffened, his eyes glazing slightly as he concentrated. "Yes Sir! We're done here – we'll be on route immediate." Blinking, he turned to the two avian Ensigns. "That was Colonel Fenix. We've got a call."

* * *

Half an hour later and half a state away, three birds swung in to the scene (an ancient, accursed trailer-park) on a Tarzan-style vine. Exactly what the vine was attached to in the middle of a wide-open plain, was not a question with a meaningful answer. Angelina asked it anyway.

Clarke shrugged as he let the vine go and watched it vanish. "It's a Toon shtick. Got it from a friend of mine when he lost his mind last year. Comic memes have to live somewhere – I was closest at the time, it jumped to me."

"But shticks are slapstick physical comedy," Shirley wondered out loud. "What good would it do you last year, a totally action-hero gift like that and your body stuck in that life support casket?"

Clarke gave a wry grin. "Some humour is Dark humour. Somewhere in the multiverse there's a world that found out about it and howled with laughter."

"Ewww. Mondo Dark Side," Shirley shuddered. "That place is definitely off my holiday list. Like it was ever on."

"There's that dumb buzzard from our bunch." Angelina pointed to the familiar sight of Schultz wandering around the corner of a decaying trailer of cyclopean fibreglass. "Maybe he can tell us which way the fire is. If he's learned to tell left from right by now."

"That's Fourth Lieutenant Schultz to you," Clarke corrected. "You're in the Toon army now. He's your superior."

"Whatever." Angelina shrugged. "I'd like hate to hear an IQ test say so. Any bunch commanded by a General-Major Snafu… well, that totally says it all. And those buzzards – they're the only carrion-eaters who ever got outsmarted by their prey. No wonder they eat rations and like it."

Shirley's aura tugged at her urgently and pointed to another shape approaching on the astral plane. It was a retriever type canine; she recognised the "Ka" of Pvs Lewis, still serving with Unit Four Plus Two despite the lack of a working body. Somewhere nearby there was a freeze-frame chamber where his physical form was kept in stasis.

_We got the call an hour ago from a KA-WA-11 Guard satellite. _The mental voice sounded in their heads. _It picked up a huge burst of ultra-pink radiation before the sensors burned out. Another two satellites were low on the horizon but still saw it. Triangulating their signal and I-Ching predictions brought us here. They're back_.

"They?" Shirley blinked.

The glowing shape pointed around the corner where flashes of strange colours were flickering as if sickly rainbows were leaking into the world from some dimension with a vastly different colour palette that had no shade in common with wholesome Toon matter_. CareLess Bruins. They do things by accident that a full-powered super-villain would spend years and millions on! And they've got an Alien sense of humour. You thought Krakatoa was a volcano? They were picnicking here, trying to light the barbecue. Never mind the bang it made on Earth… my great-grandfather said you could hear them giggling about it six dimensions away._

"That's giving my aura a headache," Shirley looked on, feeling queasy. "Mondo bad vibes."

Around the corner there seemed to be a major battle taking place, with bellowing engine notes, explosions and huge flashes of special-effect shticks that made the ground shake.

"And it's not just the Careless Bruins – we've got another unit moving in to handle those" Clarke shouted above the din. "Our job - to find who or what Summoned them. They're the dangerous ones, and they'll be around here somewhere. The rest of the team's spread out searching." The goose suddenly stiffened, getting a psychic call of distress. "Toon down! Harrison's imaginary friend is down!"

Angelina raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Imaginary friend. Right. Plain old Auras not good enough for some of us?"

"Harrison has a very vivid imagination." Clarke looked at Shirley. "His Imaginary friend took out the security cameras before the defences got him. Can you or _you_ find him?"

"Wierdsvile. But I'll, like, go for it." Shirley took a deep breath; her aura separated from her feather-form and stood for a second glowing palely. "Maybe imaginary friends work like a shaman's guiding spirit? We've met a Native American's fetch on the astral plane, we know what that looks like and junk. So – go Fetch!" Her aura nodded grimly and took off, floating over the serried rows of archean trailers.

"The rest of you – follow me. And get charged up for trouble – however you do it." Clarke Gander concentrated, and a ball of spitting light formed cupped in his feather-hand ready to cast. Their clothes were the only uniform part of his outfit; Unit Four Plus Two were Toons with generally strange and unique abilities, and that made it hard to fit in with any regular military organisation. Most such "gifted" toons never joined the Government (there was a discouraging lack of fame and glory, the costumes were unglamorous, the hours long and the pay poor) but teamed up with like-minded Talents each with their own Agendas. The most famous team was in the far South-East, and had been going for decades.

_The TeX-Men recruit all the top talent_, Clarke thought glumly. _And all they ever do is try to out-Pose their opposites over the border. They've been facing off against the MeX-Men for years_…

"There!" Angelina pointed to a particularly sinister trailer-home. "It's the one place I totally can't read. Some shopper's in there blocking us out like a mall after closing time."

"My aura's standing right next to it… she says she's found something." Shirley concentrated. A minute later her aura came back into view, but not flying this time. The blue-glowing figure was walking, or rather staggering under the weight of something invisible slung across her back. "Like, wow. She says she found Harrison's friend. Even she can't really see him too well – but he's there fer sure. Hurt bad." Her eyes went wide as she imagined what it would take to do that.

"And there's Colonel Fenix." Clarke pointed to the tall figure. "Over by the camera team."

Shirley blinked in confusion. "Way strange. We're a top-secret team and that looks like a regular live broadcast unit?"

"There are reasons," Clarke winked at her. He stiffened as he picked up another telepathic message. "They've found the ones who brought the Careless Bruins in! This way – we're backstop." He pointed towards the abandoned rear end of the trailer park, where a weedy gravel road and a rusty chain link fence backed onto a vacant lot. The serried rows of strangely rusting fibreglass trailers formed three long "streets" of dusty gravel and scabbed tarmac. "Angelique – cover that route. McLoon – that one. I'll stay here. Anyone comes running, stop them."

Shirley nodded, telling herself she had signed up for this, no matter how uncool she had always thought the idea. Plucky was the one who wanted the Action Hero parts. She took up position; she could see reflected special-effect lightshows of a battle around the corner, and in the next aisle spotted Angelina carefully placing crystals and moving concrete blocks around just a little. Even fifty feet away she could feel the energy flows of the area changing into a new, more focussed pattern.

_Well, if she does Feng Sui, she can't be all bad_. Shirley reassured herself and her aura. Her aura nodded, unconvinced, and floated up twenty feet to get a better view.

For ten minutes nothing happened. Shirley McLoon had an uncomfortable view of herself via her own aura floating above. She saw a pale feathered loon who had always looked at futures involving stage and screen; for every decision in life pathways opened up branching into the myriad futures. That pale loon now wore a dull green uniform, kneeling in the dirt and decay of an evil trailer park taking orders like some Weenie-Burger waitress and for little more pay (the risk of massive and painful harm was about the same, but that said more about Weenie-Burger's health and safety record than army life). Even her favourite pink head-feather-ribbon was gone, replaced by the military issue '_Ribbon, coiffure, Female Toon Infantry, General Issue, organic bamboo fibre, disruptive pattern tie-dye'_. She shivered for a second then braced herself.

Suddenly there was the sound of crunching gravel under running paws from the aisle Angelina was guarding – that ended with a gasp and a thud. Angelina appeared looking around the corner triumphantly, giving a high-five sign to her and Clarke Gander.

"It's cool. Those shoppers are like toast," the magpie grinned. "Come and totally feast your eyes on this."

Shirley looked around the corner, to see two figures in home-made techno-mage robes lying flat out in the middle of the gravel track. They seemed uninjured but were as flattened as any major-scale Toon mallet could have swatted them. Her aura gasped, reaching out towards them then recoiling as if she had touched boiling water, before realising what had been done to the energy alignments in the area.

"So that's what you used the Feng Sui for!" Shirley's feathers raised in shock. "You turned it into some grody Chi energy trap! Like aura landmine territory!"

"So I see. For the suspects' auras it was like suddenly running bare-pawed over a carpet of broken bottles. Unorthodox but – effective." Clarke Gander nodded. "Good work, Angelique. Now we need to get to them without that happening to us."

"No problem-o," Angelina moved one of the concrete blocks a foot, and the precisely tuned energy pattern lost focus. She happily skipped across to look down at the two toons, a mouse and a sparrow.

The mouse moaned, trying to struggle to his feet. Angelina smiled, stooped and touched two points on his shoulders. The mouse gave a gasp, and collapsed still. At that instant, the sounds of battle from round the corner faded.

"Dark shiatsu! That's a mondo Forbidden Art!" Shirley recoiled in horror. "You saw her, Sergeant!"

Clarke Gander sighed. "Yes. I saw it. Now, let's get those two bagged and delivered. Strait-jackets are in your first-aid kits. Colonel Fenix will be wanting a long, detailed talk with them."

Shirley took a deep breath, found her inner focus and extracted the strait-jacket from the large healing pack she carried. True, it had some items she was happy and familiar with; she doubted other military units carried aromatherapy and crystal healing into battle. "Way disturbing. Carrying these in our kits, as if we need them." She unfolded the tough TiToonium-braced restraints. "Only harmonious thing is, it's not us who needs them today."

"Not today." Angelina echoed, a strange smile on her beak as she looked at Shirley.

Two minutes later, they had delivered the two backstreet mages (securely trussed) to the rest of the team in the wide parking lot at the front of the trailer park. Shirley recognised most of Unit Four Plus Two – but there were not alone.

"Gross. That's, the invaders? Way alien." Shirley recoiled at the sight of a smoking armoured vehicle. It looked like something welded together in a junkyard by toons who had generally heard of tanks but never seen one in detail. The brutal-looking vehicle was painted black and bristled like a porcupine with sharpened steel spikes except where sinister runes were scrawled on its armoured side. It had evidently been hit hard; the front plate was buckled like a kicked-in can, and by the skid marks on the gravel it had been smashed back three yards across the evil parking lot by some terrific impact.

Clarke cast her a resigned look. "No. They're on our side. That's the other unit that came in to help. They pushed the CareLess Bruins back into the rift and we closed it." Just as he spoke, a hatch popped open and a wolf in an absurd parody of biker's studded leather slid out, gasping.

Shirley had not expected to recognise him. But she did, and suddenly realised she had even seen the vehicle before – or rather, Plucky had. She had read his memories down to the subconscious, and he had once enjoyed watching a video of a totally over-the-top rock band, _'Deaf Mettle Foundry'_. This was the group; the logo of the band was written in Futhark Runic script on the side of the vehicle.

"That's some way uncool rock group, not soldiers!" She blinked in surprise.

The wolf slid down one of the few surfaces not festooned with spikes, and bowed. "Frank Sikosis, at your service." He grinned. "Commander, vocalist and Very Metal Guitarist." He gestured towards the rest of the crew who were emerging. "Spike, gunner and bass guitar. Butcher, drummer and loader. Sparks, second drummer and driver." He hesitated. "Mister DeVerre, he usually stays in the vehicle. The public find him… disturbing."

"Next to, like, things coming out of the next dimension?" It was the first time anyone had seen Angelina looking impressed.

"Yes. He is our Hollywood Agent." Frank Sikosis stretched, and looked around. "Colonel Fenix! Glad we could help. We were on our way to a gig when we heard the call. We've got an hour if you want to do the photo-shoot for this."

Hal Fenix shook hands with the wolf, nodding pleasantly. "Glad to see you again. We've got our scriptwriter at work already. Ten minutes should do. Time for a coffee, then we'll be ready for location shots."

Shirley stood next to her aura, blinking. "Wierdsville. You want toons to see this?"

Hal raised an eyebrow. "We can't keep everything quiet. People always see something. The safest thing is to persuade them just what that really was. If they knew we were being invaded for real twice a week the world would grind to a halt."

"'Run to the hills' is a great metal track, but nobody'd ever come back down" Frank Sikosis said. "If there's a film team around, everyone knows what it's looking at is just special-effects. Even if city blocks are being demolished for real."

"Gah." Shirley's feathers bristled in shock. "You're filming the real stuff and hiding it plain sight – as a film shoot?"

Frank winked. "She's sharp. New recruits, Hal?"

Hal Fenix winked back. "Very promising ones, too. I know your crew are all Performing Arts school. I've got one Acme Looniversity grad here and an Addams Academy grad, both top scorers. But they won't be needed in the next scene – we can shoot their parts on the sound set. Now - clear the set, please!"

Clarke Gander saluted. "Yes, Sir. We'll be round the back, for when you want us."

Shirley shook her head, wordlessly. _'Deaf Mett__le Foundry'_ was not the worst thing she had seen in her mate's memories. That had to be the time Plucky had watched online a rock video advert for Specific Dynamic's latest Intercontinental Ballistic Anvil System – he had happily joined the voting public deciding which part of the flight and re-entry sequence they enjoyed most.

Thee three avians returned round the corner and collapsed exhausted in the smouldering wreckage. Clarke looked up at the sun and the shadows. "Lunchtime. We need to eat after all that." He pulled military-issue food pouches from his military issued segment of Hammerspace and handed one apiece to the new recruits. "Colonel Fenix updated me on your diet preferences. Hope this will suit."

Shirley had almost gotten over her shock, and looked at the packet in pleased surprise. She was certainly hungry. "Free-range humanely harvested brown rice with organic miso?" She had expected to sign away her diet principles at mealtime, and had already braced her karma for the experience of living on digitally reprocessed Spam by-products out of a can. "I never knew they did macrobiotic military rations. Like, coolest."

Clarke smiled. "Welcome to the twenty-first century Army, Ensign McLoon. We have suitable diets for everyone."

"No you don't," Angelina cut in. "I asked. You don't do live."

Clarke's beak twisted slightly in distaste, as he handed the magpie a brown foil pouch. "There's the same calories in scrambled eggs as fresh ones."

"Calories, fer sure. No life-force. That's like, no use to feed my powers." Angelina's sharp beak ripped through the tough foil and plastic. "These aren't even made from real Toon eggs. They're not even fertilised. You'd think they could at least make the packs egg-shaped."

"Gah." Shirley's pale feather-form turned even paler as Angelina gorged on non-sentient farmed eggs. _She's a magpie – they eat other birds' eggs. And fledglings. I so nearly told her I had a nest_. Her aura bristling with fury sent a laser sharp- thought at Clarke Gander, though oddly enough Shirley herself could not hear what it said.

The goose's bill gave a twitch of a smile, or perhaps more of a grimace. "Ensign McLoon. You were happy enough to hear we were a fully Integrated unit. Yes, some of us are on what you'd call the Dark Side. That's what integrated means. So, you'd prefer to be fully integrated… but only with the right sort of people? Besides – if they didn't work for us, they'd still be working for themselves, for their own reasons. Better to have them on our side."

Angelina flexed her new gloved feather-hand; immaterial claws of dark energy popped out. Shirley's aura flinched at the sight, realising they existed on her own plane of being and could hurt her like dip-soaked steel could hurt her feather-form. "I used to be evil, fer sure. Or so they tell me. Hey, was it my fault if the spirits I channelled like wanted another chance to totally hose beaucoup de shoppers? They did it, not me. I got a hip lawyer who proved it. But now I do the same stuff and get paid, working for the Government." She gave a careless shrug. "That's different from being evil – or so they tell me."

* * *

Wednesday:

The scene was an ancient, eon-haunted drive-in psychiatrist franchise whose fibreglass hoardings leered forbiddingly over a once-peaceful suburb. Unit Four Plus Two had been looking for the psychic disturbance for days, but a tipoff from one of its victims via Shirley's Ouija board had finally brought them to the spot.

"The I-Ching readings indicate imminent catastrophe," Clarke Gander threw the government-issue divination sticks and let the Universal Farce guide how they fell. "We have to get in there now, Sir – but it's shielded against psychic and physical assault. Anything with harmful intent will bounce. We've tried."

"Totally high-end!" Shirley nodded, impressed. "Mother's books have mondo huge chapters on wardings. If you make them way too solid fresh air can't get in. If you don't let light in you can't see out – but if you do, there's lasers and junk these days. Making them only bounce junk with like harmful intent – that's harmonious. Works, too."

"Hmm." The tall phoenix stood a moment in thought. "Get Van Kieselguhr up here – and tell him to bring his hobby."

Shirley blinked. "Van Kieselguhr?" She had met all the main team of Unit Four Plus Two by now. Some of them seemed to be utterly useless. "Isn't he like the dumbest buzzard in the team?" None of the buzzards had double-digit IQ, which evidently protected them from the hideous revelations they were often exposed to in the line of duty. Small minds made small targets.

"Oh, we all have our talents." Hal Fenix waggled his eyebrows in a Groucho Marx style. "Ah. Here he is." He beckoned a dim-looking bird forward, and crouched down to look him in the eye. "Van Kieselguhr. We've someone who might like to see one of your sculptures. He's in there." He indicated the dimly glowing trailer.

"Ah, sir, ain't nobody never wants to see them." The buzzard carried on whittling at something concealed in his feather-hand.

Hal smiled. "Never say die, Van Kieselguhr! Someday someone might like them. They're... unique. Toss one in so he can see it. Who knows, he might enjoy it."

_Eyes down! Do not look! Everyone eyes down!_ Hal's psychic communication blanketed the area. Everyone except the buzzards closed their eyes and looked away as the sculptor wound up and pitched something apple-sized through the window, penetrating the wardings against hostile intent.

"A sure hope he likes it. Ayup, ah sure does," the buzzard nodded, a hopeful expression on his beak.

For a second nothing happened. Then the door burst open and a hyena in a lab coat ran out, screaming and clawing at his eyes. "I saw it! I saw it! With my eyes! Its image eats at my mind! I surrender – only please don't make me look at it again!"

He was speedily tackled by three of the other buzzards and secured in a strait-jacket. One of them trotted into the building and retrieved something in a brown lunch sack that he returned to the sculptor.

"Aww. He didn't like it. Nobody never does." Van Kieselguhr shook his head sadly as he put the item away in a rowan and elder-wood anti-scrying box, proof against accidental glances from passing auras.

"It's easy to be a critic. I think your carvings are getting a lot better these days." Hal Fenix patted the avian' s head-feathers sympathetically. "Keep it up."

"I heard of bad art, fer sure. But that's what I call, really bad art," Angelina whispered. A shocked Shirley had to agree with her.

"All right – take him away. Secure that lab and shut down anything inside." Hal Fenix waved his team forwards.

"Fools! You mustn't stop me! I must complete and release the Exponential hole!" The hyena looked around his captors despairingly. "The Universe must be destroyed within fifteen days or – terrible, terrible things will happen!"

Shirley looked on in distaste as the strait-jacketed figure was bundled into a rune-shielded container truck and taken off to be contained further. She grimaced. "He's like totally insane?"

Colonel Fenix looked on, an eyebrow raised. It was a minute before he spoke. "Well. We can only hope so. I'd hate to think he was right."

Shirley's aura looked up adoringly at the golden spirit-form of the phoenix as it stepped back into Colonel Fenix's material body. She gave an immaterial sigh_. Brains and looks and power. Now there's company for a girl, real nesting material._

Shirley cast her blue-glowing spirit twin a very material dirty look. "Quit it with the film-star hero-worship, spook-girl. We have a mate and eggs at home."

_No we don't._ _You have. Not me. There's nothing of mine in those eggs. I'm single, so is Hal. Footloose and fancy free. _Her aura blew her an astral-plane raspberry.

_Well, is that like, my fault? If you hadn't totally split the scene like some gross bat out of hell, you'd have been around when it mattered_. Shirley crossed her arms, a stern expression on her bill. _Anyway… you know Colonel Fenix isn't – unattached_. Her expression changed to a smile_. And you know who he's attached TO, don't you? Someone you don't want to try and fight for him. I don't need Tarot cards to know how that would end._ Her eyes bored in to the palely glowing ones of her aura. _There's sure to be like, laws and military traditions against an officer dating one of his own troopers, fer sure. But not their mother._

Her aura's bill jerked up haughtily.

"Well, that seems to wrap it up for today." Hal Fenix stretched. "Tomorrow, if there's no other calls, we'll film the rest of the show in the studio. Our scriptwriter can put a story around what we filmed live and get it pretty seamless."

"How is it we stay off the screen?" Angelina queried. "I know lots of films get shot that never get released. But – wouldn't that like totally blow our cover if we ever got broadcast?"

Hal winked. "Who says we stay off the screen? Sometimes we do go out on air. Toons still talk about one of those shows we did. Of course, when we tackled the Martians when they first got here in the 1930's, that broadcast was on radio."

* * *

Two hours later, Shirley looked around the empty movie-lot caravan with her name on it and sighed. It was odd how things worked out. She was living as a film actress at last, but in a mandala-like piece of recursion, her real role was something quite different and she was acting at being an actress. Arranging herself into the lotus position, she centred herself for ten minutes to gain a reserve of inner calm which she knew she would probably need. She took a deep breath. Reaching for the telephone, she called Plucky's number to mind.

For a minute she hesitated. She had recently seen a lot that she would not have made sense of without having read her mate's memories even if she had winced at the time. Hearing 'Deaf Mettle Foundry' talk about their vehicle would have been meaningless before; they apparently owed their survival to having '_dropped the back suspension at the last second and gotten a better angle on the glacis plate – the Cuteness pulse hit the reactive runes and bounced _' which had actually meant something to Plucky. She steeled herself and dialled her mate.

"Plucky? How's it going?" She braced herself for the next four minutes of his reply. Her mallard evidently had very little happening and a great deal to say about that. "I'm totally glad you're safe, and our eggs. Are Gladys and Gracie coming on time with the food?" Evidently they were. Plucky had a lot to say about the diet plan they were keeping him to. "No, Plucky, there is no such thing as clinical Weenie-burger deficiency. The mung bean tofu is much better for your karma, you know. And you don't need as many calories sitting on our nest as when you were in class dodging anvils all day."

Shirley sighed, and listened for another few minutes. "What did I do today? Well, I'm making a film." That much was strictly true, she reassured herself. She had not said it would ever be released. "Oh, scriptwriters and producers and location shoots and junk like that. Yesterday we fought off two alien robots and learned from them the Terrible Secret of Space." She listened another minute. "No, I can't tell you. Because it's like secret and... mondo terrible. Yes it is that gross. They like 'protected' Toons from learning the full horror by Dipping them. If you had external ears… they'd fall off if you heard it. One of our toons who found out had ACME deliver him an instant skyscraper kit just so he could run up the stairs and jump off it. Laughing and screaming, fifty storeys straight down. Eww. Like, spatula job. He's off for a week regenerating."

She concentrated on regaining her centre for another ten minutes, while hearing all the details she did not really want to know about why Plucky's Hollywood Agent was not calling him anymore. That week she had been busy risking her life while Plucky relaxed in comfort with the privilege of quality time with their eggs; she had always instinctively distrusted mimes but now knew there was a literally Unspeakable Evil in the cosmos, and knew who its missionaries were of spreading the non-verbal world. She had replayed that encounter in her head a dozen times, recalling how it had felt to blast one of the pasty-faced performers with her aura's full lightning burst, the first time she had unleashed it in the call of duty. She had been dreading that first occasion, but faced with the silent menace… even now she could not find a downside to it.

"Oh, it's not all total drama. We get some false alarms. Day before yesterday we got a call about some way major monster showed up at the airport. It didn't show up on cameras, so we had to like go check it out. I spotted it was walking hand in tentacle with this Japanese tourist – you know, six inch eyes and a nose you have to look twice to see? I recognised her, you remember Merumo, the exchange student we had in our third year? She was back over here on holiday, showing her boyfriend around Acme Acres. It was cool to catch up with her. Her boyfriend's some sort of legendary Overfiend, you know how Anime girls are with monster guys. We checked him out okay; he had a valid dimensional visa and everything." She gave a happy sigh. "Some days I think my karma debt must be paid off already with this job – it's not always fun, but it's using all my powers for good, and that's harmonious."

If the loon had external ears, they would have gone right up in alarm at her mate's next suggestion.

"No, this film set is no place to bring our eggs – I mean that fer sure!" She shivered, thinking of the ever-hungry magpie in the next caravan and glad her warding spell was blocking any psychic eavesdropping. "You stay right there where it's safe, Plucky – I can get family leave when they're ready to hatch. I'll know it, wherever I am at the time. You remember Clarke Gander? He's got a travel shtick that's as good as a rabbit's tunnel. We find Tarzan vines, rocket sled tracks, portable holes all over the place always heading just the right way."

Plucky had much to say about her non-payment of dues in the Swashbucklers' Union, and seemed convinced she was constantly a feather's breadth from humiliating disaster without his expert hands-on guidance.

Shirley sighed. "No, I did okay. No, I'm not being fired, or even close. Colonel Fenix likes my work. He says I'm doing harmonious stuff, or some junk? He wants me to put in for a career of it. We had what he calls _"a si__tuation"_ with some Hungry Ghosts last week – our team they'd tried karmic mediation, Taoist discussion and like fifty things, okay? So I said "have you tried force?" And nobody had thought about that and we tried it and it like worked great, but I'm like totally amazed I'm the one who came up with it in our bunch, you know? It's that incarnation showing through from when I was in Attila the Hen's fowl horde, fer sure. You stay right there on that nest and..."

There was muffled sob from the other end of the line, then a click. Shirley looked down in horror at her silent handset. Plucky had put the phone down on her.

End Chapter Two


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Although the hallowed halls of Acme Looniversity had seen the last of most of the previous year's senior class, there were a few familiar faces who would be back for one more year. The young and still highly allergic mouse Sneezer was one (no longer wearing diapers and now rather taller, though still not of graduation age) and one other who had long been the staff's despair at ever getting to graduate and go. In the past few months she had progressed remarkably though – and indeed she was putting her old talents to good use. What was once the Terror of Acme Acres had spread her terror much wider.

Out on the high desert across the mountains from Acme Acres two blurred streaks converged in a smear of speed-lines, shock-waves dancing in the desert sun. Despite outward appearances it was not an aircraft dogfight with a missile homing in on the tail of a fleeing intruder – but there was a fleeing tail involved, and there certainly was an interceptor.

"Gotcha!" Elmyra Duff rugby-tackled the feline fugitive, grabbing hold of a speed-blurred pair of cheetah legs and holding tight as they skidded to a halt in ninety yards of desert, a huge plume of dust rising from the crash site. "Silly kitty-cat, disguising yourself as a pussy-cat! That's no good trying to fool us." She bent down and with a few deft moves tied the feline's arms, legs and tail into a 5-way knot. Pulling out a paper from inside her form-fitting bodysuit, she stood on the wriggling prey, cleared her throat and began to read. "By the deputised power of this State I, Rymela Duff, restrain and hand over to the lawful authorities the fugitive, Mister or Ms Insert-Name-Here, to be taken from this place and punished lots and lots and then tried, or until we get tired of it." She scratched her head doubtfully. The fugitives always seemed to have the same last name; evidently they came from a large and genetically diverse family with a tradition of law-breaking and attempted evasion.

"Oh yes. The charges. There's some of them, too." She pulled out a second piece of paper. "You are charged with while entrusted by your bank you did steal and sell the contents of the Extreme-Hazard-Deposit boxes for your own gain and to the detri... detri… made real bad things happen to the neighbourhood." Where saner establishments had Safety Deposit Boxes, Toon banks had specially shielded containers where various high-energy gags were stored. "Retrieval warrant 555971 issued by the state of…" She frowned, and looked around. Suddenly a rabbit burrow broke surface to reveal her partner George who had been waiting in ambush a mile ahead ready to head the fugitive off at the pass in the best film tradition. "What state are we in, George?"

"Ah." The huge buck shook dust out of his ears, and blinked. "We're in a… sorta dirty state. Could use a shower."

'Rymela' giggled as George slung their captive over his back like a sack of potatoes. "And we'll get one! First, we've got a bad kitty to deliver to Mister K. After that – it's time-off time."

* * *

Half an hour later they were handing over the fugitive to the head of the organisation they had taken bounty-hunting internships with that Summer.

Mister K smiled at the sight of the trussed feline. "That's him, mademoiselle Duff. But for form's sake…" He checked a sample of the Toon's chromoplasm against the official model sheet the police had provided, and nodded. "Confirmed. Your nineteenth capture this month. Congratulations, both of you."

Elmyra nodded happily. "That one didn't take long, Mister K. I want to go out again, and get another!"

The tall, elegant skunk waved the human girl and rabbit buck to sit on a bench. "Ah. Miss Duff. Mister Clumper. I was meaning to talk with you about that. We've been very glad to have you on the team this Summer. As holiday interns you have been very satisfactory – but it is now September." He nodded significantly at the calendar on the wall. "You have another year to do at Acme Looniversity, unless I'm much mistaken. Starting very soon."

"Oh poo." Elmyra's face fell. "Not just one more cute bad bunny to chase down? Or a kitty cat? That leopard was the kittiest one yet."

Mister K sat back in his executive chair, his fingers steepled and his elegant two-tone tail swishing. "For those very – specific captures, you're already very well qualified. Some of our more conventional hunters have difficulty, faced with hauling in the excessively cute fugitives. But you should finish Looniversity first, and get your other qualifications. After you graduate next Summer, come back and see me. I hope we can find a rewarding position for you both."

"Rymela, she knows lots o' them already." The big buck nodded, his eyes glazing slightly.

Elmyra giggled. The thrill of the chase always left her highly charged with energy, and she had found in George a lasting source of delight and a surprising way of burning it off. "George… I'll show you later."

Mister K opened his desk and brought out a pair of bulging brown envelopes which he passed to his two interns. "Although our business doesn't work regular office hours… it's Friday afternoon, and this does feel the right time to say au revoir. These are for you both – your final wages and a well-deserved bonus. So few people have such a vocation for this work and the necessary talent to match it. I look forward to seeing you next Summer."

* * *

An hour later, Elmyra and George stepped off the bus in the leafy suburb of Acme Acres where Elmyra lived. The human sighed. "It was awfully fun, but no more chasing down bad toons. Not for nearly a year." Suddenly her eyes flashed as she looked up at the buck. "Then, I've already got me one!"

George nodded dreamily, his eyes crossed slightly as he looked down at her. "You have? Where?"

Elmyra snickered, her hand running through his still dusty fur. "Come on inside and see. There's a mirror in the bathroom."

Ten minutes later, the desert dust was washing off them as they showered. Elmyra's new blonde wig was dusted off and sitting on its stand; complete hairlessness was a genetic thing in her family. Even her eyebrows were painted on.

"Mmm… my big bad bounty-busting bunny" Elmyra relaxed as the taller buck lovingly soaped the top of her head like polishing a billiard ball. She looked up at him; George might not be very smart but he was handsome, had a most un-rabbitish "thing" for furless skin, and had a power-hug that could dent an ACME safe like crushing an empty Weenie-cola can. She appreciated that. She turned to press close to the warm, soaked buck, her finger running through his fur, reaching up and starting at his ears. "This bit's for hearing bad Toons trying to sneak away from us." Her finger traced down to his muzzle. "This is for smelling out where they're hiding. Strong fuzzy arms for catching and squeezing them till they stop wriggling..." Her eyes widened as she looked down. "Oh my. And this bit… is for someday getting us a dozen cute bunny babies!" Her eyes suddenly sparkled.

"Oh, George…" Elmyra hesitated, unsure of how to put things into words her big but not bright buck would understand. That Summer she had laid her old life to rest in more than one way, remembering the formal burial she had made of the gerbil skull that had been her daily hair ornament all her Looniversity days. Behind the house stretched a pet cemetery to rival many battlefield ones in size; she had always done her very best to care for her pets as energetically as possible, but sadly none had lasted long in her care. _All those cute fuzzies_… a thought surfaced on her consciousness like an almost waterlogged tree trunk slowly rolling in the swell. _If not for me there'd be so many more of them still in the world._ She vaguely realised that there was some sort of debt that should be repaid – and she had a notion how to make a start.

Just then the doorbell rang downstairs. Elmyra ignored it. A minute later it rang again, more insistently. "Oh, poo. I'll be right back." Throwing a towelling robe on, she stormed downstairs to surprise the postman (a human toon by long-standing tradition as any fuzzier staff calling at that house had rarely got away again in a hurry.)

"Special delivery! Sign here please." The postman took one look at the bald, soaked and highly annoyed vision in front of him, and as soon as he had the signature he thrust the letter into her dripping hand and fled.

Elmyra looked at the foreign stamp and the return address. She winced slightly, realising that before she returned to Acme Loo she had unfinished business. Thinking of her other unfinished business, she smiled, dropped the letter unopened on the hall table and hurried back upstairs. The contents of her letter could wait an hour or two.

* * *

Another letter was awaiting Calamity Coyote when the young tech genius got up the next morning. He was surprised to see who it was from – a classmate he had helped out for pay a few times with technical projects mostly aimed at capturing bunnies – but last time he had heard, she already had acquired a bunny all her own who needed no cages to keep him around.

"What's the script, daddy-o?" Marcia Martian noticed the coyote's brow furrow in concentration as he sat near her at the breakfast table. Their apartment had been changed round by the inventor to combine kitchen and bathroom; she was currently relaxing in what looked like a bubbling hot pool – except it was not steam but cold fog coming off the water. The temperature was just above freezing and the bubbles were carbon dioxide emulating the conditions of ancient Mars. "Looks way heavy."

_Interesting._ Calamity's sign somehow expressed cautious interest as he read on. _It's from Elmyra. She has a problem. And it's rather in my line of work_.

"Elmyra. Way square. More than square. More than cu-bic. She's a tesseract." Marcia's ultra-black fingertip sketched the 4-D solid in the air with a grace that Earth-native storyboarders would despair at trying to pencil.

_Yes. And she wasn't the only one. Do you remember the Elmyra Swarm? They showed up again last Summer. Seems like they're returning for a visit at the end of the week_. Calamity's tail twitched in irritation. _As if one of her wasn't bad enough._

"Wierdsville! They were all her but – different. Six human species sub-types from all over this planet – different but... the same." Marcia's eyes went wide in her unseen face.

_Yes. An African, an Indian, a Chinese Elmyra and three very different Europeans. In the obvious ways they aren't genetically related but… in other ways they're closer than clones. Shirley said they even thought in sync_. Calamity frowned, his foot tapping as he looked at the letter. _At least, they did. But since she became Rymela and buried that gerbil skull she used to wear on top of her wig..._.

"I dig. They won't think it's hep Elmyra's changed her threads? Like she's a real fream?" Marcia splashed playfully in the freezing cold pool, which was doing to her metabolism what royal jelly did for a developing bee larvae. Mars had not seen a natural pool like it since the Great Disaster of the 1930's (Earth calendar) which had left not a canal surviving on the whole planet; as late as the 1920's the ancient planet-wide network had been clearly visible even with Earth telescopes and had been mapped for centuries. The first Martians had landed on Earth a few years later, some of them already reduced to the dehydrated forms the lower types could survive in for decades.

_She doesn't think they'll approve. And they're all turning up this week. One way or another – an interesting problem._ Calamity wiggled his eyebrows_. We have a few days spare. I think we should investigate._

"We'll make the scene." Marcia nodded. "Then we'll have to split to see the big daddy dust-hound in Akron." Professor Coyote's term-time job as Dean of Hard Knocks at Acme Acres oddly complemented his other role at the National Pie Accelerator complex where comedy test specimens received the hardest knocks science could provide. She gave a delicious shiver. "Should be a blast, working there. You with your smarts and me with mine - plus my new classy chassis." She stroked her water-slick skin, delighted with the changes that were taking place.

Calamity's already red nose blushed. _Your uncle Marvin doesn't seem too thrilled_.

Marcia shrugged. "Hey, he's a party-pooper. Back home he's solid with the only type Eight, Queen-type we have. And here's me, I'm rocking the boat heading towards being another." Unseen by earthly senses, she grinned. "You know why he really wanted to total this planet, way back? '_Getting in the way of my view of Venus'_ was hitting the tilt. He'd invested in like, a fortune in Mars water…. maybe a gallon. And this joint is up to here in it!" She partly submerged in the freezing tub.

_One starship could haul enough bullion-grade water back to Mars to smash their economy_, Calamity mused. _You could flood the market_.

"And that's why you don't see other Martian cats around this planet. My Uncle put me here as Ambassador then had the whole place quarantined off." Marcia relaxed for a minute as she applied the hose of fizzy water to her fifteen important areas. "Coolest. This takes me to Cloud Nine. If other hep-cats from Olympus Mons got here they'd find out what's on Earth. Every Fifth Brancher would want to do this!"

_Who could blame them?_ Calamity nodded, mentally referring to his notes. What appeared to be multiple species of Martian were only one; they all hatched out in the same shape but chance and environment sent them down one development branch or another. It made for a stable and rather rigid society; the dim-looking birds that made up the lower strata had already missed the turning onto more developed forms. Marcia, on the other hand, was on the upper branch and aiming for the top. Needless to say, Space Commander Marvin was only her "Uncle" by want of a more precise Earth term for relations of a race who had four radically different body forms and eleven and two-thirds sexes.

Marcia rose from the tub, marvelling as she always did at the sight of pure water beading down her zero-albedo form. She smiled unseen at the coyote's reaction; this was the most he ever saw of her, as the water was visible giving her a 3-D effect rather than her usual 'hole in the film' non-colour. "We'll take a stroll to her pad and hang out?"

_Yes. It's an intriguing project. How do seven toons get the same model sheet like that? This could advance science – and there is other thing_. Calamity's sign looked pensive.

"The other thing, daddy-o?" Marcia queried, reaching for her heat-reflective suit. Having a totally heat-absorbing skin was sometimes too much of a good thing in the Earth summers, and it was still a decidedly warm September.

_Oh yes_. Calamity flinched as if he had ran the equations on an incoming anvil and realised it was going to hit_. Rymela' s only dangerous now if you've got a legal price on your head. Having six original spec Elmyras running around is just – plain dangerous!_

* * *

The Elmyra Swarm was not the only once familiar sight returning to Acme Acres that week. Mary Melody had volunteered to cover the airport, and at the cost of covering various returning trade delegations from China and mercenary units from the Disneyland conflict, she had made sure she was on the spot when Fifi and Rhubella returned from France.

Mary waved as she caught sight of the skunkette and the rat walking through Customs paw in paw. "Welcome back!" Her camera and microphone were stowed; although Fifi had auditioned for three films in Paris, K-ACME TV only wanted proven film stars on its airtime.

"Mary! Eet ees zo good to see you!" Fifi hugged her friend tightly, the purple and white skunkette enfolding her in her tail. "And Jaggi aussi!" She waved at the tall zebra. "We 'ad ze wondairful time in France. Ze whole month, with my family and ze – explorations."

"We honeymooned in Paris. Fifi arranged a special ride on the Eiffel Tower scenic view elevator. Just us two, the elevator officially shut for testing while we went up and down together for an hour." Rhubella winked. "It felt so right… on so many levels!"

Mary groaned at the joke, but smiled at the idea. "Her tooniness is really rubbing off on you."

"That's not the only thing." Rhubella turned round to show her back; she had a sun-dress on that showed half her back-fur. "This won't rub off though. You couldn't see this when I wore my wedding dress – but it's permanent. On my model sheet." A perma-dyed white stripe now ran down her spine. "And there's more."

"My mothair, she was teaching me ze traditional knitting for ze baby skunks, ready for when ze stork arrives in ze Spring." Fifi kissed her wife lovingly. "Eet was ze big 'elp with getting my family to accept us. With two femmes, ze stork can nevair arrive by accident. I asked Miss Granny before we married. She said eet must be ze true request of two loving 'earts."

Rhubella nodded. "It still seems a strange way to go about things. My family always had the more… biological style." She shrugged. "Still, I can see the advantages this way. I save on maternity dresses – not that the money's any problem."

"Are you back here for long?" Mary asked them hopefully as they retrieved their luggage and walked out to Jaggi's Some_Terrain vehicle parked outside the airport. "I mean, you went to Perfecto and Acme Loo here, but your families are in France and BosToon, aren't they?"

"A few weeks. Then we're travelling again," Rhubella said. "We've a few months to see the world. We've not decided where we'll settle. I know the stork can find me wherever I am – but we want a home with everything ready before that." She cocked her head to one side. "It's so strange. I suppose with naturally Toonier girls they might be used to "expecting" a stork."

"'Ow are Shirley and Plucky?" Fifi asked brightly. "Eet was ze surprise to moi zat two so Toony birds zey 'ad ze eggs by la route biologique. Shirley, she looked zo wondairful!"

"Um. They're both well, and their eggs too, last time I heard." Mary bit her lip, having heard a lot about that from Shirley and the Bunnies recently. There might have been a good plot reason why Shirley had carried her eggs for months like a non-toon; an image flashed through her mind of Plucky being left to look after the nest on the crucial day and the Stork finding it empty with a finger-feather handwritten _'return to sender – addressee gone away, no forwarding address'_ sign on it while Plucky took the next aircraft out of the country. "Shirley's doing very well, at least. She's travelling all over the place with her Abnatural Forces unit, hunting down Evil Spirits and that sort of thing."

"Though it's one of those "_I could tell you, but then I'd have to Dip you_" jobs," Jaggi commented. He fired up the engines. "Are you staying at Babs' family place still? She and Buster are off auditioning in Hollywood right now."

"Yes. Mrs Bunny – I mean, Babs' mother – invited us. I can get very used to being Mrs. Lafume. But it still feels strange thinking of Babs as Mrs Bunny." Rhubella looked up at Jaggi DiSpeckle appraisingly. By the Acme Loo classification the all-action zebra was a "straight man" and filled that niche in their comic lives. Next to Fifi she was considered a "straight girl" – though ironically enough she was the one who had fallen in love with a skunkette and not a "skunk-hunk". _It must be that Law of Conservation of Comedy at work_, she told herself, her whiskers twitching wryly. Although it was one of the Classical rather than QuanToon laws of Toon physics it felt strange enough to someone educated at Perfecto.

"Right. Hang onto your tails – off we go!" Jaggi pulled out into the traffic, the Acme Acres rush-hour resembling the inside of a pinball machine but with more collisions. Had Babs been driving she would have demonstrated her expertise in Toon geometry by turning actual ninety degree corners at top speed. Half an hour of slightly less extreme manoeuvring brought them to the woods and the Bunny family burrow where Jaggi and Mary dropped them off.

"Chez Bunny, end of ze line!" Fifi called out, her eyes wide as she waved them farewell. "All alight for ze 'ome of ze carrot cuisine!" She smiled, hugging Rhubella. "'Zis was our first room togethair. We shall see if ze Bunny family 'ave redecorated. Ze way mon aroma gets with vous, I can burn ze concrete right off ze walls." Her eyes lit up, and her tail began to fume at the prospect.

"Seems like it's a skunk thing." Rhubella relaxed in Fifi's arms. "Better get underground – they've got a nice flower garden out here and it'd be a shame for us to wilt it."

Half an hour later, they had been welcomed by Babs' mother and were unpacking in their room. Rhubella looked around; it was the same furniture she had bought when she and Fifi had taken refuge there after Perfecto had made them homeless – Fifi with a car crusher and her with a data wipe that had purged all record of ever having been at Perfecto.

She put her fur-combs away in the dresser and sighed happily, sitting on the bed. "Acme Acres again. It's been home for so long – for us both." A pensive look crossed the rat's face. "Fifi – what do you think about getting a place of our own here? When we've finished travelling for the year, I mean. Most of your friends are around here."

Fifi sat next to her, enfolding her wife with her luxurious tail. "Madame Lafume, you 'ave ze joint French citizenship, since we wed. Eet would be ze shame not to use eet." She fell back on the bed, looking at Rhubella from under half-closed eyelids. "But you 'ave your friends from Perfecto to visit, non?"

"Non." Rhubella shook her head firmly. "You don't make friends at Perfecto – only allies, and that's only until one of you gets a better deal. Anyway, they've all gone by now, headed out to sunny beaches with tax havens. That or organising extra-hostile takeover bids in some financial jungle." She raised an eyebrow. "Fifi, I can buy us a condo in Acme Acres and a chateau in France – it's not an either/or thing."

"Ah, la belle France. Eet was a superb 'oneymoon." Fifi reminisced. "Paris, 'zen with my famille in Toulouse, and ze beaches of Cannes." She giggled. "I think we turned a couple of ze 'eads… ze pair of us on ze Toon nude beach wearing only ze wedding rings."

Rhubella smiled, and patted the camera in her pocket. "You blush prettily." She had wondered why Fifi had bothered going to a naturist beach considering the skunkette normally "concealed" and could walk around Acme Acres in her bare fur without comment. She had been surprised and delighted to find her wife "unconcealing" at the beach to match her. "Oh, you turned a few heads all right." In the camera were the pictures of two handsome male skunks who had been attentively watching from the next beach towel; wherever she and Fifi went the laws of Conservation of Comedy seemed to ensure a very appreciative two-tone audience. She giggled. "If they'd have known you aren't the kind who needs clothes... that'd have shocked them!"

"In Acme Acres, tres possible," Fifi said firmly. "In France, non." She took Rhubella's hands in her own purple-furred ones, and looked searchingly in her eyes. "Ruby – when we wed I said ze "_forsaking all others_", non? But you truly want me to – spend ze time with a male skunk 'unk?"

Rhubella kissed her broad nose. She patted the bag that held Fifi's sewing and knitting, including the traditionally knitted Toon baby clothes. "I do. Whenever you see a handsome two-tone male your tail signals a big "Yes!" no matter what your head says." She stroked Fifi's tail lovingly.

"Mon Dieu…" Fifi's eyes crossed.

"So, that's two out of three of us; me and your tail approve. I promised when we wed I'd provide for you – everything you need and want. I married your tail too, you know. And you can't hide what that needs and wants." Rhubella looked down at Fifi's softly furred tummy. "These things work by symmetries, don't they? If I get a visit from the stork, it'd mean you'd go the... biological route. We'll need a skunk hunk's help for that." She looked Fifi over appraisingly. "If you were going to get a stork feather because of me – I'd have thought it'd have happened by now."

Fifi felt her heart pounding. "Mrs. Lafume, later we will talk about 'zis." There was the quiet but unmistakeable pop of a Toon unconcealing. "But zat will be – tomorrow."

* * *

The next day dawned bright and not too hot; the three youngest litters of the Bunny family vanished for school by seven, while the two litters still at home in local college classes were still relaxing in their final days before the start of term.

Rhubella and Fifi finished their (largely carrot-based) breakfast and returned to their room, marvelling anew at the well thought-out features of underground living at "chez Bunny".

"Fire escapes are one thing – though there's not a lot that could burn in a concrete burrow," Rhubella mused, looking up at a ceiling hatch set in an alcove with a dangling chain. "But flood escapes?"

Fifi giggled, looking at the recycled ACME equipment. "Eet eez ze Government surplus escape from ze submarines," she tapped the instruction panel on the wall. "If ze burrows begin to flood, ze bunnies put on zeir life jackets and poof! Up to ze surface and un petit emergency raft to follow 'zem."

"I never thought of that," Rhubella admitted. "I suppose Plucky's nest would just float away, if it had to."

"Mmm. We should take a look at zat. Babs and Bustair zey said 'e was needing ze egg-sitters or zat duck would get ze cabin-fever." Fifi reminded herself to check her inoculations; at Acme Loo she had been inoculated against Disco Fever and that strain of mental disease that had escaped from a Chinese psych-lab far out in the Gobi Desert. Turfan Depression was a terrible thing, probably worse than the North African epidemic of Qattara Depression that had swept the world some years earlier.

"What happens when a duck has a breakdown… he quacks up?" Rhubella quipped.

"And needs ze quack doctor." Fifi giggled, but then her face fell and her tail drooped. "Shirley, she is not behaving as ze girl of Plucky's dreams. Eet eez ze sore point."

Rhubella raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with what she's doing? She's a modern girl. She's doing a job most Toons can't do – and one that the world needs doing. Maybe Plucky had the wrong dreams from the start."

"With Plucky? Tres possible. But still…" Fifi's long tail twitched agitatedly. She had spent an hour on the phone to Shirley that week, and the loon had not been happy. She had been horrified at what she had done to Plucky. "_When I laid our eggs and mind-merged as like, one-ness with him … I thought it'd be like totally a bonding experience_," Shirley had recounted, "_but he took it as if I'd glued him down and pulled his feathers off for spite, or some junk!" _She shook her head. "Eet eez a fine day outside, non? Eef you want ze practice with ze life domestique – I know Plucky 'e would love to see you!"

* * *

Half an hour later, they were shaking hands with a somewhat twitchy-looking mallard who five seconds later dashed off in the direction of his old home shouting "Hot bath! TV! Numbmindo console games!"

Rhubella pulled a face as she settled gently on the nest and stared after the red-shifted figure. "This is the duck who risked his life to bring Shirley's aura home from the astral plane?"

"Eh." Fifi looked pensive. "Plucky, 'e eez ze swashbuckling duck of ze adventures. "Do or die" eez ze motto." She looked down at the nest, and sighed. "Ze risk of a death heroic… to depart in ze blaze of glory… 'zat eez one thing. To live for all ze years without ze fame and adventure… 'e thinks zat eez a fate far worse than death."

"Hmm. You'd better go after him, Fifi… at least check he's not queuing to join the Eastern Molvanian Foreign Legion, or jumping on the next slow space-boat to Marcia's home world." Rhubella settled down comfortably. "A little relaxation would suit me fine."

Fifi nodded. "Eet ees ze nest for two – but you are right, Ruby mon tresor. I will be back for ze luncheon!"

* * *

"Well. This is a sight I didn't expect to see." An hour and a half later a familiar voice from behind made Rhubella jump.

Rhubella turned and looked up from the nest to see the avian she would have least expected to see at the unfashionable end of a reed swamp. "Margot?"

For a second both Perfecto graduates stared at each other – then burst out laughing.

"You are a sight," Margot Mallard wiped tears away from her eyes. "I've heard the stork screws up sometimes – but I don't think you need to practice egg-sitting!" Her eyes twinkled. "Of course… there's that Law of Conservation of Comedy you told me about. If it's funny it'll probably happen. And you getting an egg by mistake would be a laugh…" She raised an eyebrow. "On the Classics Gold radio show yesterday they played that old Depeche Mode track. How does it go?" She closed her eyes in a second's concentration and sang:

_"I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours_

_ But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour_

_ And when I die, I expect to find him laughing_ …"

"Umm." Rhubella stroked the pale eggs. "I don't know. I'll take whatever the Stork brings me, as long as it's Fifi's. This nest-sitting is getting me in the mood." She held up a very badly knitted baby costume. "I've a few months to get the hang of this meme. I think I'll need it." Suddenly her eyes narrowed. "So, that's what I'm doing. And just what are you doing here?"

Margot stretched her curvaceous form. "Well. I was at rather a loose end. You heard what happened to dear Roderick?"

"Oh yes. You cleaned him out, same as Danforth. Couldn't happen to a nicer Toon." For a second Rhubella's old Perfecto expression reasserted itself. "You're wasting your time here – Plucky's not got two beans to rub together. Shirley has all the money in that family, not that she cares." With a mother who could turn lead into gold, the McLoon family cared little for finance.

Margot sat down just outside the nest, unconsciously wriggling her tail like a nesting hen. "What's it like? Sitting on a nest? I have to admit I'm curious about it. I was here last month… and even a week later, sitting on the beach in the Maldives, I couldn't forget. I didn't expect such a plebeian thing would have such an effect on me."

Rhubella raised an eyebrow. She pointed at Margot accusingly. "Oh? I know you. You've already got all the money and the victories you need for now. You want something different, something you haven't got."

Margot shrugged. "Doesn't everyone? If diamonds were common as pebbles they'd be the same price." She hesitated. "Rhubella. You're really expecting the stork in Spring? From Fifi?"

"Really." Rhubella opened her blouse and proudly showed the still pristine white feather she wore on a fine silver chain around her neck. "When I saw this coming down – suddenly I knew I wanted it."

"Ummm." Margot looked at the feather, her façade slipping. "I didn't think you were Toony enough for it to happen like that. Then – I didn't myself, either." She winced, recalling a day in their third year at Perfecto when a very similar feather had come gently circling down out of a clear blue sky. She had recoiled at the sight, and remembered desperately backing away in shock as it fell in a muddy puddle and mysteriously faded away. Her mentor Hatta Mari had confided that a girl who refused a stork feather more than a few times would find no more were offered. She drew herself up. "It's strange that loon didn't get her eggs that way. All the Acme crowd are pure meme rather than gene, I always thought."

"Yes. Just remember Shirley's a friend of mine. And Plucky's her mate, he's taken. Just why are you sniffing around him, hmm?" Rhubella's coffee-bean nose twitched. "I remember back in our first year. When Danforth paid you to try and recruit Plucky to cheat at the Acme Bowl – you were pretty unimpressed by him. You were all over Danforth for money and status back then, and that big Diatryma Sports Scholar for fun."

Margot flicked a feather-hand dismissively. "That was then. I hate to see things go to waste."

"When they could turn you a profit?" Rhubella's tail twitched.

"Just so." Margot's expression was contemplative. "Here's a promising young actor trained his whole life for a shot at stardom, and now look at him. Plucky goes straight from the threshold of fame to nothing but house slippers and squalling ducklings? Go directly to domestic jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred Oscars. If Shirley really wanted to keep him, apart from for egg-sitting, she'd have married him." She winked, running a finger-feather over her chest. "I can offer him so much more – and not just biologically, though that'll be for starters." She had celebrated ruining Roderick by spending some of his money on subtle retouching that went as far as her model sheet; it was not a matter of simple size but quality.

Rhubella's hackles rose. "And the eggs? An incubator for them with a maid hired to look after it? I know that's how you were raised – not that you hatched from an egg."

"Neither did Plucky." Margot smiled at Rhubella's sudden confusion. "Oh. Haven't you met his mother – or didn't you read the details in his dossier? She has mammal genes, I assure you. I've seen her. It's what he was... brought up looking at. He has a perfectly natural interest. Shirley's not a natural mate for him. She's not even his species, let alone… equipped to please him."

Rhubella frowned. There was no denying that Shirley was a pure avian, with all the disadvantages – or strictly speaking, lack of mammalian advantages – that went with it. Like all toons she had some control over her shape, and with enough effort had somewhat remodelled herself for a week or so before the eggs were laid, much to her aura's disgust. "She's equipped in some ways you haven't got – like a direct high-voltage line to the forces of the cosmos."

Margot winked. "I always find it funny, pure-strain avians. They go on and on about what a proper bird should look like – and then buy themselves padded tops. Inferiority complex, or what?"

"And since you crashed and dumped Roderick, you need a replacement to appreciate your assets – someone different." Rhubella looked hard at Margot. "Your very own rising young film star, maybe?"

"Why not? I'm sure I can offer him rather more than that spooky loon," Margot smoothed back her riot of purple head-feathers. "Money and influence open doors, you know, especially in Hollywood. I could be surprisingly good for him. Better than a certain loon who's stuck him with someone's eggs then flown the coop. I rather doubt they're his, or she'd have nailed him down legally." Margot had won fame and high marks at Perfecto Prep for engineering the most vicious pre-nuptial agreement the Perfecto lawyers had ever seen. She idly marvelled that marrying a handsome pauper would make it completely useless. Defeat could come from strange directions.

"If you think that, you don't know Shirley." Rhubella's eyes glittered dangerously. "But try and prize her mallard away and you will! You know the saying '_you and whose army'_? She's got three. The one she works with, her friends and –she's a fair piece of an army herself now. Why do you think that Unit Four Plus Two want her? Mess with that loon and you'd wish you'd taken on the Mafia, or Disney! I don't know if her mood ring can be set on "kill" but you're going the right way to find out."

"The world's full of risks. Big opportunities come with big risks." Margot inspected an already impeccably groomed feather-hand. "Valuable items you expect to be well-guarded, hmm? You don't build Fort Knox to store scrap iron. And that nest is definitely – Fort Knox. That only makes me wonder just what the feathered goods are like." She hesitated, looking at the eggs. "I'm not sorry I'm not equipped for eggs, physically – but the idea's there. I am seven eighths avian."

"Yes, you told me once." Rhubella looked hard at her Perfecto comrade. Officially she was eight eighths despite her looks denying it, good families not officially admitting otherwise. In Margot's family photo album there was reputedly an old black-and-white holiday snapshot showing her great-grandmother Masie Mallard dancing the Charleston on a tropical beach with a handsome Big Bad Wolf; the holiday souvenir was officially nothing more than that. There had been pedigree wolf bitches at Perfecto outdone at their own game by the outwardly avian mallard who had one in her remote ancestry.

"Mmm. I actually came round to tell Plucky my good news. You know that project I was investing in? Well, it's looking very promising." Margot winked. "I think I'll be seriously in the money."

A set of rat ears went up. "The first genuinely new vice in centuries? Totally different from anything else?"

"Oh yes. I've not tried it myself, but our focus groups are very hopeful. It's being trademarked as "Corona" – direct electrical brain pleasure centre stimulation, chemical-free and our legal staff say it's not covered by any laws worldwide!" Margot's eyes were wide with glee. "We'll be marketing it very exclusively. You won't be seeing adverts on K-ACME TV."

"Don't tell me – you wanted want a guinea pig but you'll settle for a duck – someone with time on his feather-hands." Rhubella's hackles raised. "You think he'd buy that?"

Margot laughed. "Oh no. He couldn't afford Corona. We're not aiming at his end of the market. If you need to ask the price you can't afford it." Her eyes flashed. "Half the budget cost was making it un-copyable. Try a hacked copy and you end up with a cooked meatball for a brain."

"Charming. So, you're here to make him another offer?" Rhubella settled back on the eggs protectively.

"Yes. And if he says yes – that's up to him." Margot turned to go. "Let him know I called, hmm? As your Acme Looniversity friends would say – see you in the funny pages!"

* * *

Not half a mile away, the questionable mallard in question had been enjoying his first hot bath in days. "This is ridiculous," he glowered as he scrubbed, listening out for the timer alarm on the oven to announce his triple sausage-stuffed crust meat feast pizza was ready. "It's unnatural, that's what it is. They're Shirley's eggs. I've done enough sitting out in the rain – Feng Shui or no, even in September that nest's plain too draughty!" He looked around his reed-woven house; even Shirley had conceded it was a fine piece of eco-friendly building. "It'll be getting colder soon. Being hatched in that open nest would be plain cruelty to fledglings."

Just then the timer pinged and he rushed into the kitchen, his beak drooling. "Food! Real food at last…" After a month of Shirley's Ayurvedic energy-flow balanced diet he was starving; the only edible food had been the daily candy bar that Gladys and Gracie had been kind enough to sneak into his (mostly free range brown rice and organic lentil-based) rations.

"This, I've so looked forward to…" He carved the twenty inch pizza into quarters and raised a steaming slice, anticipating the delight. Biting into it, for a second he went to savour the full sensation... then stopped.

There was nothing wrong with the fresh-cooked pizza. It tasted exactly as he remembered it should do. But somehow it failed to satisfy – and try as he might the mallard could not pin down exactly how.

"All that free-range rice and tofu has scrambled my taste buds. I should have never trusted anything that's not advertised on TV." He ate the pizza regardless, but cast around for something else. "Aha!" In his backpack he had the day's jealously hoarded 'Luxovice Lightweight' bar; he had not entrusted Fifi and Rhubella with that. "No more calories than if it was straw but… what the hay."

His eyes lit up as he savoured the calorie-free bar; the wrapper of this at least had no ingredients written in Sanskrit. And whatever else Shirley's diet had spoiled him for, the Luxovice Lightweight tasted better and better every time; it was the high spot of his day. Visions of a crate of them suddenly filled his mind.

With a contented sigh, he relaxed on the sofa and switched the television on. Before they had moved out to the nest Shirley had insisted on placing tuned crystals strategically around all the electrical appliances, "_to like, neutralise negative orgone flows, fer sure_." For a second he raised his hand meaning to sweep the rocky rubbish away – but at the last minute he hesitated.

Shaking his head, he reached for the remote control. "All this egg-sitting is driving me loco. I need something healthy and normal to drive it out of my head." He leafed through the TV guide and flipped to the 'Maximum Metal' channel, savouring the grinding notes of power and the healthy images of bands with spiked leather costumes and smoke-snorting armoured vehicles that poured out of the screen. Any band whose members wore gruesome masks was automatically on his play list.

"Deaf Mettle Foundry!" He yelled against the turned-up sound, his familiar air guitar in his feather-hands like a virtual old friend. "Whoo-hoo! They're my all-time favourites!" He cheered as he saw their trademarked transition – crowd-diving straight off the stage, the band were passed over the heads of their frenzied fans all the way to their spiky armoured vehicle the 'GRAVUS METALICUS" then roared off to do battle with the amazingly realistic special-effect monsters. Eyes glued to the screen, he pumped one feather-fist up and down in excitement as he saw them engaging a nightmarish swarm of disgustingly cute aliens with the rotary 205mm.

"Now use the tracks! The tracks! That's right… and the front roller. With the spikes on it!" Plucky's eyes shone as he saw his heroes shoving most of the last aliens into a disturbing-looking rift with their spiky vehicle then jumping out of it to "mop up" with their customised instruments. "Oh boy… that guitar player… and that twin-bladed tungsten guitar. That's one they can really call an axe." He hummed along to the merry tune _– Eat yourself Alive_ was for this group one of their milder numbers, practically classed as a ballad.

"I've been away from all this far too long." He noticed changes to GRAVUS METALLICUS that he had only heard were in the works two months earlier. "They've upgraded – that's a Dash Five Block Three turret forged from High Dourness steel – the turret front and gun mantlet are so very grim! And the runes on the front plate – thirty percent more sinister than the old Block Two model!" The website had included quotes from what was obviously a sci-fi tale, describing how the extra-sinister runes would resist the attack of a fifty KiloChan optically directed cuteness pulse at two hundred yards.

Suddenly he froze. Deaf Mettle Foundry were not fighting alone on the highly detailed set. There were others in the background engaged in a convincing-looking sorcerous duel with the invaders that must have taken a large swipe at the special-effects budget. There were other loon actresses around Hollywood, certainly – but as he watched a blonde-topped avian in uniform split off a glowing blue aura and blast a hideously fluffy thing, he realised just who he was looking at.

Plucky sat back, his eyes bulging. "Shirley. She can't lie. She just didn't tell me. I thought she was doing a serious job protecting the planet. I could live with that. But she's off making hot rock videos with Frank Sikosis and Deaf Mettle Foundry!" His beak dropped wide open in shock. "I should be doing that!"

* * *

When Fifi knocked on his door an hour later, the collection of harmonic tuned quartz crystals from around the television and the rest of the house were at the bottom of the swamp outside.

Plucky sighed dramatically, holding out his feather-hands as if expecting Fifi to handcuff him and drag him away. "Don't tell me. Exercise period is over, I know. Back to the cells."

Fifi giggled, if a little nervously. "Ruby and moi, we 'ave to go. Ze eggs zey 'ave been tres safe with 'er. At ze Perfecto zey learned many ways of looking after ze treasures."

"Right." Plucky followed her silently back to his open-air prison, settled back on the nest with a sour expression. He distractedly waved Rhubella and Fifi farewell and flicked through a Hollywood show-business trade journal that had been waiting in his letterbox.

"Hmm. Casting's already finished for "Beaks of Fury." I'd have been brilliant in that." He restlessly leafed through the studio diaries. "What? And they've closed casting for "Pollutonauts"? That film had my name all over it – I could have been leveraging my years of super-hero experience as The Toxic Revenger!" With a snort he threw the magazine down. "Just wait. This nesting gig isn't the end of the Pluckster, no sir-ee! I have a future out there."

"Delivery from Acme Products Home Shopping network!" A voice from behind made him spin round. There was a uniformed human toon proffering a large box. "Just sign here, Sir."

"Oh boy. Presents!" Plucky scribbled a signature on the form and hauled the box into the nest. "This is the only treat I've had since I got here." Frantically he tore at the packing to get at the prize inside. And stopped. And shuddered. His dark green feathers turned a sickly pale colour as he realised what someone evidently saw as his future.

His feathers bristled as he looked at his gifts. No return address was on them, or any clue as to who had sent them. There was a (bubble-blowing) pipe, a pair of sensible plaid carpet slippers and an economy priced golf bag – the defining trademarks of the domesticated, stay-at-home Pop. "This is somebody's sick idea of a joke –** I hope."**

End Chapter Three


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

(Author's note: the lines about the Smart Patrol, and the ageing Suburban Robots who Monitor Reality, are highly obscure DEVO references.)

"This is like, so totally bogus, or some junk." Shirley McLoon stared at the garish paperback in her feather-hand, her eyes wide in shock. "I found this by the checkout at that convenience store – not my kind of place but they had a sale of chi-balanced mineral water. It's "_1001 things the Government don't want you to know_." Like the secrets of the design of dollar bill, just why they had to build the Pentagon that shape using those exact foundation materials and the real reason you only ever see Hello-Kitty's face from straight on." That reality had shocked her to the core, and one of the unit's buzzards (normally immune to psychology) had somehow started to comprehend the true significance. His feathers were blown clean off as the hideous revelation hit him with the force of an anvil dropped from orbit.

"So?" Angelina Angelique looked bored. Unit Four Plus Two were headed back to California from a mission on the Eastern coast, where a consignment of experimental tinfoil hats had fallen into the wrong hands. They had worked far too well. "You read that junk?"

"Junk? You were there yesterday, you saw what they've got hidden under WashingToon, the same as I did," Shirley opened the book to show a blurry, fake-looking photograph. "All this conspiracy stuff – it's all true!"

The magpie snickered. "You really believe what you read in trashy paperbacks piled up remaindered in discount stores?"

"But it IS…" Shirley stopped. She blinked, looking down at the book. The cheap binding was already cracking up after one reading. "Wierdsvile. I totally get it now. Colonel Fenix and his higher-ups can keep their karma pure by not lying about what they do. They can pass lie-detectors if you ask them what they did. They don't have to conceal anything. They've just made sure nobody believes it."

"Welcome to the twenty-first century. They took the Big Lie and Marketing re-branded it. Never underestimate the gullibility of the public." Angelina winked. "Oh, look. We're almost there."

Shirley looked out of the bus window at a town boundary sign. "_You are now entering Zainsville, Ohio_," she read "_Population 200 friendly people – and a few old grouches_." All around was endless yellowing prairie of harvest-ready cornfield as high as the bus; the only people she had seen for an hour had been tall, lean farmers with plaid shirts, pitchforks and stoic expressions standing by the roadside by their gingham wearing wives. "What's out here? Looks like the sort of place where nothing ever happens. Zainsville? More like total zero-ville."

"Which is perfect for what we want," Sergeant Clarke Gander turned round to look at them from the seat in front. "If you had a seismograph station trying to listen for faint tremors all the way across the planet, you wouldn't want to be next door to the ACME testing range."

"With crashing safes and anvils impacting from orbit, and a bunch of 1 MegaToon Plot Devices going off every hour," the loon nodded, understanding dawning on her. "You want harmonious silence to tune into something. Like, what?"

The goose grinned. "That so-called grain silo is covering a facility that goes ten storeys down. At the bottom of it – you'll find out."

* * *

Deep beneath the fields of Ohio, the earth was tunnelled deep with installations dating back decades. There were so many secret bases disguised as petrol stations and farm supply wholesalers that to keep the area functioning most harmless facilities had to be disguised as secret lairs to maintain symmetry. Shirley blinked in surprise as she stepped out of the lift that had taken her ten storeys down from a door labelled as the Janitor's closet in the erstwhile _'Ploughkeepsie plough whistle repair mart'_. She had expected some rusting 1970's Government facility such as she had already seen under nearby Akron while visiting the ageing Suburban Robots who monitored reality – but this reality was far more of a shock.

"Mother?" Shirley spotted a familiar figure sat behind a modern superconducting Ouija board. "What are you doing here?" Her question was partly answered as another familiar figure walked into the room, Colonel Hal Fenix.

"Hello, dear," Melicent McLoon waved cheerfully. "Dear Hal asked me in on this. It seems we have the sort of problem I can help with."

"Miss McLoon senior has some insights into the case," Hal addressed Clarke Gander. "I've much appreciated her inputs."

"And I yours." Melicent winked shamelessly, her tail-feathers twitching as she looked up at the tall phoenix, enjoying her daughter's muffled squawk of outrage. "Most – productive."

Colonel Fenix gave a tight smile. "Indeed. Now, here is the situation. We have another incursion that's within our remit. Normally, our sensors of one kind or another – physical, paraphysical or psychic – show us where an invading entity arrives on Earth. Normally we can at least pin it down to a county or two, enough to start homing in. We have a problem. This time – we can only say three things. It's powerful, it's ancient and – it's diffuse."

"Scattered. It's spread out like a bad smell blowing across the astral plane. This thing's tapping power from people all over the country, like the old story of a bank employee stealing five cents off every account – if it keeps going, how the money will roll in!" Melicent tapped the Ouija board. "We've had a few Toons around the country fading out, drained dry completely by it so far – but it's nothing the police or medics would really notice. Astral plane vampires don't leave physical marks."

"It's here, it's hungry, it's everywhere." Colonel Fenix summed up. "And we have to find it and stop it."

Angelina Angelique gave a sharp-beaked grin. "And then we get to proceed with Extreme Prejudice!" Her tail-feathers spread slightly. "I love that part of the job. Just think of all the money we save in not arresting them. Anyway – you don't just jail an energy vampire then let it loose after it's served its time and expect it to reform."

Shirley's feathers ruffled in distaste. "Angelica, you ARE an energy vampire."

The magpie shrugged. "So I should like, know about it, fer sure?" She tapped the shoulder of her jacket where her insignia sat. "But now I'm on the side of the angels – or the Government, anyway."

"_When Pete was only in the seventh grade, he stabbed a cop _

_ He's real R.A. material, and he was glad to swap_

_ His switchblade and his old Zip-gun, for a bayonet and a new M-1_

_ It makes a fellow proud to be a soldier…."_ Clarke Gander quietly crooned the old Tom Lehrer track.

Hal Fenix looked pained. Beside him, Melicent smiled wistfully. She was used to being misunderstood herself, being a sorceress and a necromancer. It had been yet another reason she had never appeared alongside her daughter in their class films, unlike Bathsheba Bunny with Babs or Dominique Duck with Plucky.

"We've put together all the information upstairs – one up from here, that's the seventh floor down. It includes the data from the local Smart Patrol operating out of Akron. In four hours we have to move out – so get the data that's waiting for you and get some rest. We're on this mission and the clock's running." Hal nodded to his team. "Now move out, Toons!"

* * *

As the rest of the newly briefed Unit Four Plus Two rested underground an hour later, Hal and Melicent relaxed in the centre of a small crop circle a hundred paces out in the corn looking up at the wide skies of the Not Unreasonable Plains (the Great Plains were a thing of the past, what with the economy). Around them the yellowing wall rose more than head-high, providing more than visual privacy.

"Out here is a much easier place to think, far less interference than back home in Acme Acres with its crowds," Melicent commented, relaxing on one of Shirley's old bean-bags that she had brought along. "The only surface life around for a mile is dried-out corn plants… the aura of anything else trying to sneak up on us would rather stand out."

"Quite." Hal nodded, similarly relaxed on the official issue '_Unit, furniture, lightweight, seating, single user, folding, officers for the use of"_ that to untrained eyes looked like a standard olive-green camping stool. "Melicent. We need to talk about Shirley."

"Ensign McLoon, S, service number 31472.3 recurring, indeed?" her mother raised an eyebrow. "I hope she's been giving good service." She materialised a bowl of freshly-caught raw shrimp with pesto and offered one to Hal before crunching a handful with gusto, shells and all.

"Quite excellent. She's coming into her full adult powers, and she's proving very useful." Hal chuckled. "I have to preserve "_need to know_" even if you are helping us on this mission, so I can't quite tell you what the mission was last week. I can say a lot of people try to excuse their deeds by telling us God told them to do it… but it's not so often they have it in writing. Actual graven stone tablets, in ancient Hebrew." Hal sat back, gathering his thoughts for a minute. "Ensign McLoon channelled a previous incarnation with relevant experience, one who'd seen the original Twelve Commandments. She proved the signature was forged."

Melicent's feather-hand hid a broad grin. "That's my Shirley. What she doesn't know, one of her incarnations generally does." A wistful smile settled on her beak. "I wish I'd have known her genetic father for more than that one delightful weekend. He was from Elsewhere, passing through, I knew that, and I knew he couldn't stay. We met at The Archies' farewell live concert, so many years ago now."

"A much misunderstood group," Hal nodded. "Only in the last few years have we guessed something of the true power of Dark Bubble-gum pop music."

"That's what called Shirley's sire across five planes to investigate." Melicent closed her eyes for a second, remembering. "When I saw the power of his aura I knew he was one in a billion. Not a chance to pass by."

"I noticed you managed to avoid the "Mom" meme despite raising Shirley," Hal looked at the senior Miss McLoon appraisingly. "That's a rare thing in Acme Acres."

Melicent nodded. "Leaving me quite unsuitable to ever appear in their class films with Shirley and her friends! I'm setting a bad example, or so I've been told. Unlike Mrs. Bathsheba Bunny, Babs' mother… happily married and mom to seven litters. I knew Bathsheba quite well, back then. I was at her wedding, even. She married in white and came back from her bunnymoon with Babs on the way."

"Quite the poster-girl for the meme." Hal noted. "Although rabbits have many memes that seek them out."

Melicent looked at the tall phoenix. "About Shirley. Let's guess. She joined up as an Ensign, which is often a temporary post. You're considering asking her to stay. Full career."

"She's doing a good job. You know how rare such talent is. You know how much we need her." Hal's feathery antennae gave a slight twitch. "But you also know how much concentration our work needs. There's two eggs in her nest that she's naturally got her mind on, even now. When they hatch, that's going to be far more of an issue."

"Mmm." Melicent contemplated. She had raised her daughter as an independent, self-assured loon who could take on anything the cosmos could throw at her. After the initial shock Shirley had been very pleased with her eggs, especially knowing what one of them was. Whether she had told Plucky was another matter; if not, Melicent would not have dreamed of interfering in that way. "I admit I have read a few rather different futures concerning my daughter and poor Plucky. There's not many of them involving conventional domestic bliss. At least, not with each other."

"Reading the futures is a risky business." Hal sighed. "I try and avoid it. When you can look at your team and on any mission see futures where some or all of them won't survive it… it's depressing. And it rarely helps in avoiding those fates."

"Well, I don't see any probable futures quite that bad. Still, a few are rather disturbing." Melicent had raised an eyebrow at one image from not so many weeks down one particular timeline featuring Plucky as a rising film star; he was happily relaxed in the bedroom of a luxury apartment lying next to a stunningly beautiful purple-feathered mallard girl. Though Melicent did not recognise her, she evidently had far more to offer him physically than a pure-stock avian like her daughter ever could. Again, if Shirley had not seen that prediction Melicent would not be the one to disturb her concentration with it. Futures were tricky things and possibilities opened and closed all the time like targets appearing from the mists of potential before slipping out of range unless seized.

Hal steepled his feather-fingers. "As if the military wasn't tough enough for most toons even in peacetime, my rather special unit has its own risks. There's no peacetime for us, ever, and so we've a certain... casualty rate. It never stops. I lost another of ours just last week; Private Harrison's imaginary friend didn't make it." The phoenix shook his head. "I had to transfer Harrison himself back to where I found him, the 167th National Guard Flagpole-painting Division. He's no longer an effective asset to us, sadly. But his imaginary friend was brilliant. A sad loss." The regular Toon Army had called on Unit Four Plus Two to test out its new anti-jamming psychic radios the previous month. They had been unable to jam them, until Harrison's imaginary friend suggested using marmalade instead, which had punched straight through.

Melicent gave a wry smile. "I know what kind of things you get sent against. It's a dangerous world for Shirley facing them beak to maw – but it'd be a dangerous world too if they weren't stopped, and could creep up on her sitting on the nest. Your way, at least she has help by her side and backup supporting her." She looked at Hal appraisingly. "Just because I'm not the broody hen type, doesn't mean I don't worry about my daughter and my un-hatched granddaughters. You can be sure I'll be watching over them – whatever happens." The one reassuring thing she had seen in the future vision of Plucky and the purple-feathered mallard girl was the incubator the eggs were in; there was an obviously hired professional nurse diligently looking after it and the device had been a far more reputable brand than ACME.

"You don't object?" Hal queried.

"How can I object? Shirley enrolled in Acme Loo hoping for a film career as soon as she finished," Melicent reflected, relaxing on the bean-bag. "She's got one with you, and a job that uses her talents to help people. She was always keen on that. Very good for the karma."

"That rather kills two birds with one stone." Hal nodded. "She's becoming a very useful psychic warrior, I must say. Though before she can join us Career - I think she really has to get things settled with Plucky."

"Killing two birds with one stone. Yes." Melicent had a sudden incongruous image of her daughter finding Plucky with the mallard girl and putting a ten-pound tuned quartz crystal to somewhat inharmonious use as a stone club; she had past lives reaching back to the Stone Age who would have experience wielding such weapons to fullest effect. "Well, with toons that'd be difficult but someone could try." She cocked her head to one side, a wry smile on her beak as she considered it. Far more likely would be Shirley blasting her cheating mate with her psychic bolt, with her aura definitely agreeing to lend a feather-hand on that score.

* * *

Back in Acme Acres, Elmyra Duff looked nervously at her calendar. The rest of the Elmyra Swarm would be arriving the next day from all over the world and unlike previous visits she was not looking forward to it.

"Query." Marcia Martian had come over with Calamity Coyote to help her prepare. "They're all still totally hip to the kind of vibes you were deeply into, way back? You changed style a piece, over the years. Where are they at now?"

Elmyra rummaged in a desk drawer and pulled out a group portrait. "This is last year. I don't think they've moved on since then." The photograph showed half a dozen Elmyra clones identically dressed in Elmer Fudd style traditional hunting outfits, except they carried large nets rather than shotguns. "I got into wearing ACME reconditioned army surplus later that fall, after they'd all gone home."

Marcia and Calamity studied the group closely. The current Rymela was recognisable mostly by her orange-reddish wig; there were three facially very similar Europeans who had blonde, brown and dark red wigs respectively. The other three were more distinctive; a Chinese or possibly Japanese Elmyra, a high-caste Indian with the distinctive forehead mark and a curly-wigged Afro-American girl with skin a shade or so lighter than Mary Melody. All were identically shaped, sized and dressed in classic green hunting suits; the synchronised swarm of seven staring at the camera with expressions of terrifying cheerfulness. This despite their homes being an almost even scattering across the planet; the three European-looking Elmyras hailed from Ireland, Australia and Argentina respectively.

"They're relations? They don't have your family handle." Marcia looked at the names pencilled on the back. "Not Duff by name – or even close." She had expected them by the usual Toon convention to be called Dhufovich, O'Duffey, Dhu Fu and similar to preserve plot symmetry. "How'd you, like, first meet up?"

The human girl frowned, scratching her head. "There was a bunny," she declared. "I remember that. It was in Acme Park! I made a dive for the bunny and suddenly – he jumped straight up and we all hit our heads in the middle. They were just… there."

Calamity nodded thoughtfully. Just as particles in a vacuum could appear from the probability field, toons often turned up exactly when needed for dramatic symmetry. _The Farce is strong in them,_ he nodded. _It's an inbuilt Plot thing, like Beeper's speed_.

"Sure, Beeper can break the sound barrier easy enough. That's a built-in Road Runner shtick, he doesn't need to work at it," Marcia said proudly. "But it takes someone like you, daddy-o, to fix it good as new afterwards!"

Calamity blushed slightly, scuffing his athletic shoes together_. We all have our talents. I'm getting close to defining what George's is_. His signboard changed to the very recognisable typeface used in the International Journal of Toon Physics.

"Lay it on me, smarts!" Marcia's eyes blinked, impressed. "To Rymela, he's more than just Mister Fuzzy, her main squeeze." From what Babs had told her over the years, no rabbit girl would look twice at George; rabbits were naturally attracted by sharp wits rather than muscle, making Professor Bugs such a pin-up on burrow walls around the world.

Calamity reached for his T-pad, and brought up a screen of Toon Physics equations_. Fuzzy. Yes. A lot of Toons are that, but there's something special about bunnies. They're fuzzy down at the QuanToon level. You can't measure their cuteness and their position in space-time at the same time. Can't be done. It's not just a matter of trying to make more careful measurements. Look._ With that he linked to a class film clip from the previous year of Buster trapped inside a particularly advanced trap set by Elmyra, this time with a floor lined with Acme surplus battleship plate steel impossible to burrow through in the usual rabbit fashion.

As the coyote and Martian watched, Buster concentrated… his image blurring like a hologram going out of focus. In a few seconds there was just a blue expanding blur – which suddenly sprang back into focus as the fully defined rabbit on the far side of the wall, walking off and blowing an ironic kiss to a distraught Elmyra. There was no neatly rabbit-shaped hole punched in the armoured wall as there would be with Classical Toon Physics.

_A bunny can concentrate on its fuzziness – which lets their position in space-time become vague, a wave function not a fixed point. QuanToon uncertainty means they spread out to be somewhere in a possibility cloud – and controlling it means they choose where to end up when the wave function collapses_. Calamity drew a vague and fuzzy cloud on his message board that overlapped with a wall, then rubbed it out except for the part on the opposite side.

"Like – spinning on one of those playground roundabouts, and they choose where on the orbit to jump off?" Marcia blinked.

_Yes! And Toon rabbit burrowing works the same way. No mechanical energy is needed to dig after starting the initial hole... they just use probability to shift the position of the hole thing through Hammerspace. Rabbits create their own portable hole, and with QuanToon tunnelling they ride along in it. Lakes, oceans and other tunnelling problems are bypassed through Hammerspace. _Calamity nodded meditatively. Where standard Physics enthused over wormholes in space-time, he had put in a lot more research into rabbit-holes which were a lot easier to spot and handier to use if a Toon suddenly wanted to cross the planet in a hurry without air tickets.

"Coolest." Marcia excitedly made notes in her notebook. "But those portable holes are trouble. We get a lot of party-crashers coming through from all over. Remember we met that yellow rodent thing from a sideways sort of Japan last year, who fell through one by accident?"

"Pikadon! I thought he was Cute!" Elmyra briefly reverted to type. "And I wasn't scared of the… side-effects of cuddling him. It's not like my hair could fall out anyway. Off, yes." She patted her blonde wig reassuringly. Since meeting George she had given up crazy-gluing it to her scalp – uniquely, he liked her with her wig off. Shirley had something about being true to her inner self, that was at last starting to make sense.

_Hmm. I managed some long talks with him through Beeper. Beeper could understand his language, as they used the same compression. An intriguing visitor. _He tapped at his laptop which transformed into some form of electronic species identification guide and flashed up an image of the highly energetic, glow-in-the-dark rodent._ Pikadon, the Nuclear Poke-Thing_. _Evolved form of Plasmadon_. Calamity's ears went right up. _Yes! Your Elmyra Swarm ties in with what he told us about his home-world. In every town the Nurse and Policewoman is a different copy of the same person. Not clones, though. Identical cousins, he said._ It had saved that alternate world a fortune in casting film actresses and writing scripts for new characters as everyone was a retread of the one before. _They're Toons and they're meme-based like we are, not genetic._

"Identical cousins. We have them on Mars; they are usual from pairings between a Branch Six and a Branch Twelve, of course. But here? You Earthlings have such a primitive life cycle." Marcia blinked. She cast a shy look towards their bedroom, and the devices Calamity had needed to use all his inventive skills on to keep her fast-altering form satisfied. It had not been too surprising to discover there was an Adult supplement to the Acme catalogue, or even that half the items in it were exactly the same ones as in the regular catalogue, simply renamed and with different suggested uses. Still, only Calamity could have assembled the Device properly configured with the five synchronised rocker-arms, the whirling flexible tubes and the gas cylinders to match the needs of her current Branch Seven-and-a-third level body. She cast a smouldering glance at the coyote. "When I get to be a Branch Eight… we'll be compatible without equipment."

Calamity's nose blushed a brighter red than usual. _I'm looking forward to that experiment_. _But back to the Elmyra swarm. I know why they won't like the idea of Rymela and George. They're not just jealous – it's a matter of Symmetry Breaking_. His laptop screen filled with equations. Toons could undergo rapid and surprising changes, finishing up in radically different forms. For someone studying water who had never heard of ice, there was no way of predicting what was about to happen when the temperature reached zero. _You're not related through your family, your chromoplasm – you're shaped by the same stable meme, or you were. And now you've changed that. Joining a meme group reinforces it, and vice versa. Their own meme isn't so stable without you. That's the problem. That's why they'd want you back_.

"Oh, poo." Elmyra raised her nose haughtily. "That's their problem. I'm not going back to how I was before. As if I wanted to. As if I could!" She giggled. "The other rabbits always told George he was just a worthless dumb bunny. But I brought out his talents. Big talents." Her eyes crossed at the memory. Mary Melody was not the only Toon human now grateful for traditional squash and stretch abilities. "Oh, and he's a great bounty-hunter too. Weird, that no bunny-girls ever wanted to cuddle him. Silly bunnies!"

Calamity's ears twitched. He had heard all about George via Buster; naturally anyone who had spent most of his Acme Looniversity career dodging Elmyra was curious about a fellow rabbit actually liking her. Rabbits were highly social and kept in touch with other rabbit clans even through the most tenuous links; families with as many siblings as Babs had could end up in a few generations related to half the state, and needed to keep track. From what Buster had heard, George had been a family scandal for years. It was shocking and totally unheard-of for a rabbit not to like carrots, which would be enough to brand him as a social pariah even without his lack of any measurable IQ. The coyote recalled Merumo, the Japanese anime girl who had been in his Weird Science class for a year as a transfer student – according to her, the most dreadful insult imaginable in her home town was "_you'll have to marry a foreigner_."

"So, they won't think you're hip any more." Marcia shrugged. "Who cares? What can they do about it?"

Calamity shivered. _Multiply animal cunning by years of experience bunny-hunting. Add jealousy. Multiply by six. Result is trouble_.

* * *

A two-hour limousine ride West from Acme Acres, the Northern California coast hosted a wide range of settlements. The high rocky ridges looking out over the Pacific held some exclusive, high-status housing – and settled amongst them the same architects had built high-technology laboratories that were a world away from the smoking chimneys of the older industries.

Margot Mallard stood on the fashionably plant-covered, eco-friendly roof space, looking out over the fine view below her. She smiled, looking at the figures on her tablet computer concerning the Corona project. Getting in on the ground floor of an entirely new vice that could be patented and legally marketed for all the market will bear – that was the kind of thing a Perfecto graduate dreamed about. "Honour is nothing without Victory," she mused, quoting Genghis Khan.

"Ms Mallard?" She turned to see one of the white-coated Toon scientists who worked with her business partners on the Corona Project. He was a tall, skinny hound wearing oversized glasses such as most folk in the genre wore. "We've got the Sniffer built. It's in this suitcase here." He patted a designer styled attaché case.

"Excellent – Nigel. It is Nigel, isn't it?" Margot looked him up and down. Memorising details of all one's staff down to one's least significant underlings was something Perfecto taught; it cost nothing and made them feel valued. "You've tested it?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Nigel's long ears bounced as he handed the case over. "Just as you wanted." His eyes widened behind the thick lenses. "The idea's unheard-of! Why, the safety applications will be… everywhere! Just think of the people we can save with this!"

"Mmm." Margot's eyes narrowed slightly. If this worked, despite what her researcher believed she was not going to be mass-producing this – not until she had some exclusive use out of it. It had been her idea having seen some of the subtler Toon shticks in action – at Perfecto Professor "Sappy" Stanley had a nose for trouble that had enabled him to spot well-concealed plots well in time. There must be some scent of disaster wafting from the future that he was smelling, and the "sniffer" was designed to give her that talent. "You can set this for particular projects, targets? The world's full of hazards. If I want to find trouble for Corona I don't want it triggering when some nobody downtown walks in front of a bus."

"Oh, yes, Ma'am. I'll demonstrate." Pulling what looked like an ordinary e-book out of the attaché case, Nigel pointed it at one of the ground cover plants at their feet. An image of the flower flashed red on the screen with the warning sign _Extreme danger – Lethal Hazard Imminent_.

"So?" Margot raised an eyebrow, looking around the roof garden. "I don't see any danger around here."

The canine's teeth bared briefly in a grin. He walked over and viciously stamped the flower into the ground. "But you didn't know I was going to do that."

"Hmm. Impressive." Margot nodded. "Yes. I want this for the Corona Project. We're opening up new territories here, with new possibilities and maybe hazards – and this could be just what I want." She signed for the Sniffer, and mentally grinned as her researcher scurried back to the lab like a good minion. _The world is now my oyster_, she told herself. _At Perfecto they usually say "And to get anything out of it you need a firm grip and a good sharp knife."_ _This is my new knife._ _You can get really sick eating a bad oyster– but with this… I'll know which ones to generously present to somebody else._

She stepped down from the roof and into her apartment, carefully putting the Sniffer in the safe for the night. Looking around at the empty room, she felt an unfamiliar twinge. The last time she had been up here Roderick had been around. They had put each other to good use, while secretly glorying in the plans they were about to spring on each other. _Like in that History Channel show of World War One… tunnelling teams digging towards each other under the trenches, the first one to dig into position and blow their mine wins_…

"Yes. We both knew how that was going to end for one of us. That was half the thrill of it," she reassured herself, sliding out of her designer dress and stepping into the shower. "Perfecto trained me well. Everyone else is – expendable." That twinge returned as she looked around the empty apartment, stronger than before. She could pick up the phone and in half an hour have a trained masseur of any desired species grooming her feathers. Such tended to be strong, handsome and skilled in many ways – and she had the money to buy anything now. She looked over at her phone, and realised that was not going to help matters.

"What is wrong with me?" Margot Mallard sat down in the shower, feeling the water running off her sleek feathers. She remembered her Ethics classes at Perfecto, admiring the successful entrepreneur Genghis Khan who had said so inspiringly: _**a**__**man's greatest work is to break his enemies, to drive them before him, to take from them all the things that have been theirs, to hear the weeping of those who cherished them**_**. **"I've already done all that. Trodden on all below me. Reached the top on a pile of bodies – and still climbing. This is as good as it gets. Or… it should be." She closed her eyes. "Something is still missing." Something Rhubella had said suddenly came back to her. _It's easy enough to defeat somebody. It's so much harder to win them_. That would have definitely scored her no points in Ethics class, she mused. But she had been to Rhubella's wedding and remembered the look on Rhubella's face as she ran to her skunkette bride. "She gave up on winning. She gave up on everything they'd taught her. And look what she won."

Margot stood up, taking stock of her situation and acknowledging the new feeling that she realised she had to resolve somehow. One part of Perfecto training she was not going to reject was to realise when she had a problem and tackle it right away. She glanced around at her empty, expensive apartment – Roderick or Danforth would have found it nothing special. She looked down at her subtly and expensively reworked body, taking stock of that as well. There was an unmarried mallard she knew who would probably appreciate both. _Unmarried means available. Or it's good enough for a lawyer, anyway._ Towelling herself dry, she began to make certain travel arrangements.

* * *

"I'm heerrre!" That evening Margot was not the only one heading in from the coast to Acme Acres. Mrs Babs Bunny waved cheerfully as she popped out of the long-distance burrow into the field beside her new family home. Fifi, Rhubella, Mary and Marcia were waiting there with baskets of food and drinks.

"Buster couldn't get back for the party?" Mary asked, blinking as she looked around expecting to see a blue buck appear.

"Heh. Price of fame. Multiversal Studios are holding casting sessions till late tonight. He's a hot tip for their next blockbuster. He'll be back tomorrow." Babs cast a shrewd eye around her friends. "Well, what do you know. Apart from Shirley it's just us, the old crew. Sleepover time?"

"Oh, Oui! I 'ave missed zat so much!" Fifi enthused, her huge tail waving. She winked. "For Ruby et moi, we 'ave ze advantage – we are ze only ones 'oo can bring zeir partner along to ze girls-only sleepovair!" Her tail folded lovingly around Rhubella.

"Jaggi's busy too, Mary?" Rhubella had noticed a distinct lack of Zebra in the neighbourhood.

Mary smiled. "Buster isn't the only one away making films. Not that he and Jaggi are competing – one does comedy, one does action thrillers. He's got into 'The Alpha Enigma'. It's amazingly… stark."

Babs elbowed her gently. "Ooh. You lucky girl. Getting so much thrilling action."

Mary put her external Toon blush talent to good effect, the glow manifesting three inches clear of her body. "Well, yes. But Jaggi's talents you'll see on screen are very different. He's already had bit parts in 'The Icarus Covenant', 'The Damocles Agenda' and 'Nineteenth Protocol'. Hard-boiled thrillers, all of them."

"Ze names are ze giveaway…" Fifi murmured.

"Well, none of them are a bundle of laughs. He's going for supporting lead this time, playing the hero's chief henchman." Mary nodded, her brown eyes wide.

"Hmm. Heroes have henchmen too these days? Used to be just the villains had them." Babs thought about it, and shrugged. "Hey, it is the twenty-first century!"

She opened the big ex-Government surplus missile Silo door and invited her friends into her burrow. Moving the ACME-supplied door to their new house had been easier than a non-Toon might have thought, just changing the scenery underneath it without actually hauling the weight of hundreds of tons of reinforced concrete. "Ooh boy. It's been awhile since we did this. I'm glad we're all in town right now. I'm off on Monday to casting, myself. It's a fishing comedy – that's why I'm casting, myself."

"Rabbits go fishing these days? I thought you usually went carrot-hunting?" Rhubella asked curiously, her naked tail swishing.

"Remember those scriptwriting classes? Fishing needs hooks. I'm getting to use all those Plot Hooks they told us about." Babs winked.

Mary and Rhubella groaned. Married life had not toned down Babs' sense of humour.

They unpacked the hampers, and settled down for an evening of relaxation.

"On Mars, this would be the main treat for a Royal-grade hop." Marcia shook her head wonderingly, holding up a small bottle of mineral water.

"Maybe I can sell them my fishing comedy?" Babs asked brightly. "Me in fashionable tail-length waders, up to my cotton-tail in the most rapid rapids in the rockiest of the Rockies. Or is that too much like science-fiction for your home town?"

The Martian girl (broadly speaking) blinked. "Your Earth films are so primitive. They last less than a short Earth-day let alone a real Martian Sol, and with your simple life-cycles the romantic plots are so crude. You can't even…" Her Toon aura gave the impression of a confused frown – which was convenient since her face was as invisible as ever. "Having only two genders must cripple your plot development. There are not even Earth words for the things you cannot do!"

"So, we won't miss them. Where shall I put these, Babs?" Mary unpacked her hamper to reveal a dozen boxes of vegetarian delicacies, some of which were carrot-based. "Jaggi made them for us."

Babs' pink nose and white tail twitched as she scented the food. "Now that's real science-fiction. A male who can cook like that!"

"Hey, it is the twenty-first century," Mary repeated slyly. "You'd expect Jaggi to be good with camp-fire cookery – and he is – but he's got other talents. Artistic, too."

"Artistic?" Marcia queried.

Mary looked up innocently. "Well. You've seen body-painting? There's a good chance he's going to be… putting stripes on most of our children."

"Hmm. If I said "_and the really impressive bit is – he can do, it no hands_" would that totally break our censor rating?" Babs asked, her paws bashfully behind her own back and her face a picture of innocence.

"Yes – completely. I should know, I'm in broadcasting. So it's a good thing you didn't say it." Mary relaxed on the sofa, closing her eyes in dreamy recollection. "Still. You're right. I'm expecting…."

"You are? That's wonderful!" Babs hugged her, ears going right up.

Mary laughed, and shook her head. "Not that, at least not yet. I'm expecting… he'll pass on his stripes to most of our foals."

Rhubella blinked. "Most of? Just how many are you planning? You must have been bunny-sitting Babs' family too much. The idea of having two dozen kits rubbed off on you, looks like. Anyway, rabbits arrive in litters."

"Well. I asked Mother what ours might look like; you know she's a Nurse. She says with a mix anything's possible. Some like me, some like Jaggi, most in between. With a dozen they could all be different." Mary's eyes went wide open as she considered that idea. "Most more or less striped, or – you know, Jaggi's a lot darker than I am! Most places, really. It's only some of his fur that's white."

"Oh yes. I've seen his very black... nose." Babs slyly winked. Suddenly she winced. "Thinking of bunny kits I'm really glad I could get you guys altogether. I've got a... crisis of bunny conscience."

"Babs? You 'ave a problem with Bustair?" Fifi's ears went up in concern.

A pink bunny's ears drooped slightly. "Oh, no. He's everything I could ever ask for. And whatever I do, is fine with him." She gave a brief but happy sigh. "Mary – when I got back from Bollywood, remember I showed you what I'd found out about my spin-change forms? About how time just stops for them when I'm in other forms?"

Mary nodded. "And you said you'd been keeping them busy. But you never wake up spin-changed."

Fifi smiled. "Bustair, 'e 'ad ze Elmyra Swarm chasing 'im en masse for years. Now 'e 'as ze Babs brigade… one at a time."

Babs bit her lip. "That's my problem. It's confession time, guys. After the first night of our Bunnymoon I've given him nothing but my different spin-change forms every night. He likes them all."

"Well, who wouldn't?" Mary asked. "They're all you."

"Umm, yes. But they're all a different me." Babs spin-changed into her Nurse Babs outfit, which was not just a matter of clothing but a taller, more authoritative figure. "I've not been exactly counting the time I spend in each form – but this one, she's been very popular. Several night's worth. And I've taken this form for other things, nest-sitting and such." She paused, blushing pinker than usual in embarrassment. "I've got a film career just starting… we're going to be having bunny-kits someday, but I'd like a few Oscars on the shelf to decorate the burrow first. Mother came back from her Bunnymoon with me on the way, and that was the end of her theatre career. What a waste – I've seen her reviews, she was great."

"Plucky, 'e 'as zat problem. Except for ze greatness. You 'ave made two films at least, whatevair 'appens now," Fifi relaxed, a glass of carrot wine in hand. She offered one to Babs, who took it gratefully. "Zat ees something."

Mary's eyes went wide. "Oh my. Babs, I think I see the problem. They're all different bodies. What happens to one doesn't happen to the rest. You think they all need to take – precautions, separately?"

"Mary… they ARE my 'precautions'. After the first night I didn't like to use anything else. It didn't feel right on my Bunnymoon." Babs' ears drooped. "Dita von Bunny-Teeza, Vanna Pink… Buster always gets one of them. Not little old me."

"Tinker-bunny aussi?" Fifi asked brightly.

"Bleah. No, NOT Tinker-bunny. I'm not that desperate." Babs hesitated. "I've not ran out of forms yet. I could think up some new ones to spread the load, without going that far. But that's only putting the problem off."

"And Bustair, eef 'e asks for la naturelle Babs? To be with ze Babs 'e married?" Fifi flicked her purple head-fur out of her eyes. She stroked Rhubella, her purple fur caressing the pristine white stork feather her wife wore on her necklace. She was not sure if the delivery stork would want it as a receipt, but they were taking no chances.

"If he asks… then that's what my buck gets. The buck stops here." Babs drew herself up proudly, and patted her slim figure. She hesitated. "But until then… I might have to hand out time-clock cards to Nurse Babs and the rest."

"If any of them get over to a month of experienced time and then find out – oh my. That could be a problem." Mary nodded. "Nurse Babs finds she's got with bunny-kits on the way but plain Babs doesn't. What happens then? You have to stay spin-changed in that form till the litter's born? Can you do that? And what if there's… several of you that way? Nurse Babs and Bunny Parton and Vanna Pink and all the rest, sort of… queued up on hold?"

Babs winced. "I don't know. Hardly anyone can spin-change like me. Even Miss Granny wasn't sure. And I really, really don't like the idea of just – abandoning them that way, never going back to that form would be like locking them in a cellar and throwing away the key. Even though time for them just – stops, and they'd never know. But I would."

"Hmm. But they're all you anyway – it's not as if they have any separate personalities. You've always been… everyone you copy. Babs is Babs and – everyone else she chooses. But I can see the problem." Mary nodded. "It's film history not medical history you're planning to make."

"Hold ze front page", Fifi flourished an imaginary pen. "Ze news flash! Babs, ze one-bunny baby boom! One 'undred bunny actresses turn up at ze Maternity ward one aftair anothair, all Babs! Planet Earth 'ees 'ollowed out completement to make ze big enough burrow!"

"Just think of explaining that on the birth certificates," Rhubella mused. "I must tell my broker to buy shares in diaper factories. Strollers too." She was adjusting to a less hard-boiled way of life since falling for Fifi. While many girls dreamed about who they would like to marry, a more typical Perfecto girl drafted business plans of who to divorce.

"That's not funny…" The colour drained out of a normally pink rabbit as the idea hit her like a custard pie falling all the way down the gravity well from the Oort cloud in the cold dark beyond Pluto and Horace_Horsecollar. For a few seconds her ears drooped. Suddenly a small smile crept back, and she unexpectedly snorted in laughter. "Okay. So it is funny. But it's still a problem." She waggled her eyebrows. "Imagine how that'd look on the family tree!" An ear dipped. "Especially if one or two of them turned out naturally looking like bunny forms of Cher. That… could happen."

"Imitation eez ze sincerest form of flattery," Fifi mused. "But eet could be embarrassing eef ze real Cher she finds out."

"More paperwork to fill in! They'd have to cut down all the trees to make the paper for it all… let alone all those diapers." Mary tried to suppress her giggle.

"Mary, I spent my whole life till this Summer up to my waist in bunny babies with my siblings. You've baby-sat at Mother's, you know what it's like. Having just a few years relative peace and quiet as an international media celebrity would be nice." Babs sipped her glass of sparkling carrot wine, and offered the bottle to her friends. "You're not drinking, Rhubella? You brought the wine after all."

Rhubella shrugged. "I've a stork on the way. I'm playing it safe, as if I was going the other route."

"I've heard some storks go drunk-delivering…" Mary's brow furrowed in concentration. "Is that linked? Sweetie got delivered to a bald eagle's nest, and she's a canary."

"Don't let's think about that." Rhubella winced at the idea of a tipsy stork delivering the wrong little package. "Having my life go meme-based is new territory for me. So I'm letting Fifi carry the heavy stuff and I'm sticking to grape-juice, for now. Setting a good example to the stork, anyway." She frowned slightly. "It's weird. Am I meant to be eating for two? Will I need to use a bottle and formula to feed our new arrival?"

Babs grinned. "Just listen to us! This meme's really come to town. First Shirley, then you, and now… you'll never guess what Shirley told me when she phoned last night. There'll be some more additions to the Loon family by the time the snows arrive."

"She's got more some eggs on the way? I guess she could, it's been over a month since she laid the first batch. Plucky's going to end up half buried in eggs like a kid in a ball-pond." Mary's brown eyes widened.

"Heh. You're close. Not Shirley, though. There's a new loon nest being built, all right. Guess who!" Babs wriggled her eyebrows, and her pink hands sketched above her head the outlines of a towering beehive hairdo.

"Mon dieu! Shirley's mothair, she 'as caught ze meme too?" At Babs' gleeful nod, Fifi's tail began to fume lightly as she considered the matter. "But zen – with Shirley gone, 'er nest ees empty – and 'er daughter 'as reminded 'er of ze idea of ze eggs."

"Well, she's no older than Mrs. Le Pew. Not that toons really age that way. But – when I asked Miss Granny, she said we're made of more than chromoplasm – we're action and drama." Babs looked around, happy that her girlfriends were here to talk such things over with; she had sorely missed them. "It doesn't just happen; it takes the energy of dramatic circumstances too. Extreme ones."

"Probably why older toons rarely have children," Mary mused. "With more experience, it takes a lot more to… impress them."

"Shirley, she told me 'ow she got ze eggs, zat night in zat cage of Elmyra's. Mon dieu! Zat was – extreme." Fifi's ears went up. She stroked Rhubella's tail, remembering just what it had taken for them to summon the stork – the night they had been most worried Fifi would be deported and might not meet again.

"And Mrs. Le Pew, I guess it happened for her when she… surprised Pepe by turning up with a permanent back-stripe. The timing's about right, anyway." Rhubella nuzzled her wife. "Remember we met her the week before her kittens were born? I think she looked so beautiful. I'm not going to look that way, seems like. One of us should." The Le Pew family now had three young sons, who all outwardly looked very much like skunks. Although nobody yet knew it, in fact there was one biological detail they had inherited from their tomcat grandfather that in years to come would give many skunkettes a shock.

Fifi's eyes crossed. "Ruby – you are still wanting zat for moi? Moi with some male skunk-'unk?"

"Female ones can't summon you a stork, looks like. Well, I've tried." Rhubella winked, running a finger down her own perma-dyed back stripe. "We could... you know, one picks, the other chooses? I find us a prime skunk selection, but you get the final choice."

"From what you were telling me, the selection finds you." Mary had noticed the admiring glances other two-toned males were giving Fifi in the street. It was not as if any particular ones were following her – indeed, there were no more skunk males about in Acme Acres than usual – but by genuine plot coincidences their paths and Fifi's now crossed hourly. "But if you start actually looking for them – by the Law of Conservation of Comedy, won't they stop turning up?"

"Hmm. That'd be if it stopped being funny." Babs' long ears tangled as she concentrated. "They'd vanish like snow in Spring as soon as Fifi was chasing them, all right. Having Rhubella deliver her one gift-wrapped for Xmas… well, I can see the humour in that. Even if it'd break our old ratings to itty-bitty pieces."

"'Ow you say, 'we crack up all ze censors'?" Fifi winked. "Zat will do eet!" She heaved a happy sigh, taking both Rhubella's paws in hers. "Go for eet, Ruby mon amour. I trust in – your taste in ze skunks."

Rhubella kissed her broad nose. "I hope so. I married you, after all."

Babs cheered, raising her glass of sparkling carrot wine. "You've helped me make my mind up, girls. They say a meme is an idea whose time has come. Calamity always says you only get steam-engines when it's steam-engine time." She paused, taking a deep breath. "Tomorrow night, Nurse Babs is off duty. Mae West-ern Bunny can be a resting actress for a bit." She giggled, pink special-effect bubbles manifesting from her ears as she drank. "Honestly, she could use the rest. I'll see if Buster still remembers little old me."

* * *

As the freshly dug bunny burrow echoed with the sound of the toonettes' party, a mile away at the edge of Lake Acme there was another new arrival, not one delivered by the stork. Two hundred yards from Plucky's nest in a secluded bay shielded by tall reeds, Margot Mallard was pulling out of the water a large inflatable life raft. It was nest-sized and nest-shaped, and available from the ACME catalogue unlike hand-woven reed nests which were not something Perfecto taught its students how to build. She staked the landing painter to the beach, and looked around at the landscape. The Autumn sun was going down, turning the waters of the lake to crimson and gold.

Margot looked around, nodding critically. "Well. It's not exactly Montego Bay. No bright lights and silver-plate service. But the company should make up for it."

End Chapter Four


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

(Author's note: slight re-arranging from origunal posting. In the original it looked as if Babs would have needed a 36-hour sleepover for the timelines to mesh!)

Night fell in the carefully labelled "Film location camp" as Shirley McLoon positioned her official military-issue dream catcher over her bed, checked the Chi energy flows of the room were aligned correctly, and relaxed. It had been a long day. Her unsleeping aura separated out and left her to it, heading out somewhere harmonious and high-energy for the night.

The big dream-catcher turned on its bearings as her mortal body slept the sleep of the just. Although she had vowed not to deliberately look into her future, her sleeping form had no such limits.

_Shirley 'awoke' as her dream form wandered into a future time-line, one of the myriad possibilities that branched off whenever a key decision was made. She found herself on the patio of a luxurious home, inside a securely gated compound on a dry ridge-line. There was the bright sky-glow of a city all along one horizon – from the star positions and the cloying sense of spiritual smog, she guessed it was somewhere in the Hollywood Hills. The stars had shifted just a little; measuring their angles against the precession of the equinox she calculated half a decade had gone by._

_ Suddenly she sensed a presence – a familiar one. She saw Plucky waddling round the corner, dressed in a designer sports jacket. It was a slightly older mallard, but she noticed deep changes in him. He was smooth, confident, relaxed – seeds of all of that had always been in him, but this was a duck who had known success and taken it in his stride. Her dream-form invisibly followed him around the corner, and suddenly her heart melted. She saw her daughters. They were both pale feathered loons, with no outward trace of their father._

_ One of them tugged at Plucky's finger-feather as she sat by the pool. It was the first-hatched chick, the one the Future needed to be nurtured into a mystic to surpass any of her ancestors. "Daddy? What are all those… significant patterns I see up there?" She pointed up at what few stars could be seen through the sky-glow. Saturn and Pluto were moving into Taurus, with Jupiter and Clara_Cluck ominously aligning with Orion. Great events were obviously due._

_ Plucky shrugged. "Brandi, they don't mean anything, really." He smiled, patting his daughter's platinum-blonde head-feathers. "Aww. OK. Years ago those star patterns used to have dumb names, but nobody believes in that now. That one's the… triangle. Over there's the other triangle, that one's the jagged line, and that's the stupid bunch of random dots." He sat his daughter on his knee. "You ought to practice on your Numbmindo 2020 for the championships, sweetie – the maid will be up to tuck you into bed in half an hour." He turned to the other loon girl; the daughters were quite different in appearance. "And you, Candi, you need all your beauty sleep. It's the Miss junior beauty-queen finals tomorrow. You know this stardom game is win, win, win! Getting the edge and keeping it – that's what it's all about."_

Shirley's physical form woke up, sweat rolling down her beak. "That was like so totally mondo bogus!" She looked up, scenting smouldering wood. The dream-catcher had jammed on its pivot, locking into that one future until it began to short-circuit. The alarm clock showed it as three in the morning, her biorhythm's lowest ebb. It was not surprising it had stuck on one of her darker futures.

_Brandi and Candi? That sounds mondo trailer-park._ _I'd never give my daughters low-life names like that. How could that happen? And Junior beauty-contests? Like ewww, total exploit-o-matic territory. So shallow you couldn't float a feather on it_. The loon shivered, checking her warding spells were still in place and powered up_. But… I haven't like told Plucky what to call our hatchlings, though. He still thinks they'll be sons_. It had never seemed a suitable time to tell her mate – he would find out quite soon enough when they hatched. She briefly considered phoning her mate up with the harmonious names her divinations had picked and getting his promise on the matter, but immediately shook her head. She had learned the hard way not to try and twist the futures by what her visions showed her.

Shirley drew herself up, drawing on her inner focus. "There's only one way. On that future – even before they hatch, I'm – not around. I'm already on another incarnation." She grimaced. Remembering all her past lives had its pros and cons; she had no particular fears about the issue but had often departed good lives with friends and relations left behind far too soon. She steeled herself, telling herself that looking along that timeline and seeing what happened to her would not be a good idea – it was the karma you built in the present moment that decided things.

Shirley looked at the green uniform jacket ready for the next day's missions, hung up neatly on its hangar behind the door. Serving with Unit Four Plus Two was never going to be a safe occupation. She had known that before she started.

Just then, the warding spells on her official military "_trailer, film star, location-shoot, single occupancy_" shivered. It did not feel like a direct attack – but they had registered a heavy offensive spell being triggered nearby.

Ensign McLoon, psychic warrior in a front-line Abnatural Forces unit, grabbed the jacket and slid it on over her bare feathers. "Who's like stressing out my aura at this time in the morning?" She felt her astral form's shape sliding back into her physical body, the glowing figure highly annoyed at being called back from a party on the eleventh plane. Taking a moment to centre herself, Shirley swung out into the night air.

"I should have known." Next to her temporary home was an identical trailer, with the name-tag 'A. Angelique' stencilled on the door. A flashing blue glow was lighting up the blinds from inside, and the air shivered with unleashed mystical energies. Shirley winced, as if she was suddenly wading up to her tail-feathers in stinking mud – rather than helpful 'Chi' energy, the magpie collected negative 'Sha' from her dark version of Feng Sui like a super-villain refining chemical weapons from toxic wastes.

The door opened and Angelina backed out, the magpie's feathers ruffled in alarm as she stared into the interior. She caught sight of Shirley, and her sharp beat twisted in a mix of relief and contempt. "Like, if it isn't Miss Purity."

"What have you done in there? It feels like you've opened up a portal to somewhere mondo negative," Shirley snapped, powering up her energies. The room was a smog-bank of sour vibrations that grated on her aura like the sound of chalk squeaking on a blackboard. Looking down, she winced as she saw Angelina's computer was open to vote on a government petition to make all sentient vegans legally edible – '_as those who have stepped down from their place in the food chain'. _Shirley recalled that Concorde Condor was hotly tipped for power in WashingToon, and this would be the kind of thing he might sign if a nice-enough-looking activist presented it to him.

"Well, duh. But I've done this a hundred times and it's never run away from me like this before." Angelina gestured into the trailer. "Don't tell me you've never used the mirror trick."

Shirley's aura peeked through the rune-enhanced aluminium wall of the trailer, and shuddered at the sight. Putting two mirrors facing each other was regarded as very bad luck in most oriental lore – the images forming a succession of smaller and smaller reflections tapering away to infinity. That made a virtual hole in the cosmos, and things that crawled in from outside were generally nothing a wise mystic would invite over. "I like, know better than to try." Her physical bill wrinkled as the scent of the room hit it. "Oh, gross. You burn wormwood and asafoetida incense?"

"Sets the mood." The magpie grinned. "But look – it's fading. The mirror trick caught something, though."

Shirley felt a powerful aura nearby, and turned to see Hal Fenix. The pure-blooded avian was decorous and daytime-TV friendly even if he was wearing nothing but his uniform cap; his feathers shone palely in the moonlight. Evidently the psychic disturbance had woken him.

"So it seems." Hal nodded towards two items set up to record the mirrors, a specially tweaked dream-catcher and a high-speed camera with a telephoto lens. "Let's see what you spotted." He spread a feather-hand, his aura capturing the data like a blind toon reading braille. "Oh, yes. This is interesting."

Shirley's aura peeked over his shoulder from her vantage point on the astral plane, and her pale blue eyes widened. This was like the atomic cloud chamber Calamity had demonstrated in Weird Science class the year before – invisible particles left tracks in it like contrails left by aircraft too far above to directly see. There was something that had passed through the detector which nobody had otherwise spotted, but it had left very distinctive tracks.

"Mother said there was something like a bad smell on the astral plane. Pe-ew. That fits the bill." Shirley's feathers ruffled in disgust. "Mondo negatory energies."

Angelina Angelique winked at her. "It's energy. We stake it down and tap it, we can use it. Duh. You're the only skank around here who gets negative about it being… negative." She looked Shirley up and down, a smile on her sharp beak. "Oh, I totally get it. You're the sort who walks around all day not fantasising about sexy vampires. What modern girl does that?"

"Ladies, please." Colonel Fenix spotted two auras powering up for battle. "Save it for the enemy. Let's see what this camera captured."

"Coolest." Angelina linked the camera to her laptop, and typed in her password on the customised Sinister Runic keyboard. She scanned back to the start of the brief event. At first, nothing was visible but reflections of the inside of the caravan, in a hundred or so steps receding into the far distance.

"Hold it – there. Back a bit." Hal tapped on the table. "About two hundred reflections in. Something passed between the mirrors."

Angelina zoomed in to the maximum, and the three avians peered at the laptop screen. It was like looking down a long corridor with doorways facing each other – to Shirley it reminded her of the Classic English Farce, generally set in mansion-houses with a dozen characters just missing each other for well-choreographed plot reasons. One of the doors opened, deep in the mirror-world where nothing should be stirring.

"Gotcha!" Angelina's high-speed camera had fired thousands of times a second, but only on one was there anything like a clear view. Even there – the intruder was blurred with more than speed-lines; unlike the sharply defined mirror frames around it the image seemed more like a sculpture made from a cloud bank than anything of solid chromoplasm. "I can't make it out. It looks like it's got… are those horns on its head? If that's its head?"

Shirley pulled a face. "Daemonic? Mega uncool. Like, Demon territory's Mother's scene, not mine." Melicent McLoon was well-known in sorcerous circles, to say nothing of pentagrams.

"Yes." Hal paused, staring at the image. "I think that's our first look at what we're after. Good work, Ensign Angelique. Now we need more pictures – to pin it down." He sent a mental call, and in a few minutes the whole of Unit Four Plus Two were scouring the area for matching mirrors. If this was the energy vampire, it was like a not-quite-perfect Stealth aircraft – every now and then radars would get a brief flash when it changed course or the pilot opened the canopy for fresh air – not enough to get a good target lock, but enough to hint there was something out there.

* * *

An hour later, Shirley was several states away via Clarke Gander's portable hole. She was standing in an open square in Seattle, looking up at two towering Avant garde sculptures. One of them, the Space Needle, pointed to the cloudy skies as it had since the 1960's. The other one – she levitated up with a pair of mirrors and a camera, setting it up on the tip. It was a tricky installation; while she held one mirror in position her Aura had a rather harder task to put the other in position. Levitating, she floated back to the top checking the alignment, and nodded.

"The buzzards are planting regular mirror pairs coast to coast," she noted as her Aura made the delicate adjustments. The Space Needle pointed to the sky, but the business end of the newly built Time Needle pointed three minutes into the future, and was heavily coated in future-proofing paint against the strange turbulence seething around its tip. "This is so like tracing a ley line on the ground." The Time Needle was a definitely one-of-a-kind viewpoint; with enough survey points reaching all the way to the astral plane Unit Four Plus Two hoped they could pin down their elusive prey.

As she stepped back to re-check the alignment, her aura's eyes widened in alarm and pointed urgently behind her. The loon turned, to see three toons in dark suits and dark glasses stepping out of the lift carrying industrial dream-catchers. By the way the astral plane fogged out around them, they were obviously powerful psychics.

"Like, hidy." Shirley waved. "You're mondo late – I've got the cameras running already."

The first one, a muscular brown bear, blinked. "Cameras? No cameras! This is an official public-interest secret project." He pulled out a blank warrant written on psychic sensitive paper that to most toons would appear to be whatever would most persuade them these were folk who were absolutely not to be argued with.

"Coolest. I've got one of those too." Shirley reached into her jacket pocket and showed him her own Universal License. "Snap!"

The other toons, a beige cat and a rough terrier, looked at each other. "There's someone else on this? This is meant to be a secret. Who are you?"

Shirley grinned. "That's mondo secret too. You tell me who you are and I might tell you if you have need to know. Fair's, like, fair." She looked the trio up and down. "So totally retro. Black suits and black shades. You're casting for a re-make of the Blues Brothers?" She sent Colonel Fenix a probing thought, and a few seconds later the phoenix stepped out of a portable hole next to her.

The cat and the bear bristled. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" The feline snapped.

Colonel Fenix smiled – his eyes fixed on the third one of the party, the terrier. He strode over and shook hands, scanning the canine's aura. "We meet again. I read that they call you Mister Reddish-brown these days."

"You know him?" The bear demanded.

"Aye, that I do," the canine had a strong Northern English accent. "Last year. I was on exchange like this 'ere."

The phoenix nodded pleasantly. "With my team, then. Ensign McLoon, this is Corporal Oughtershaw. Of the British Army's Thirteenth Para regiment."

"Like, as in parachutist?" Shirley asked, then suddenly winced as realisation hit her. "Oh. As in Paranormal. I totally get it."

"This is all very touching." The bear snapped. "You can call me Agent Magenta-Fuscia."

"All very professional," Hal Fenix mused. "One supposes the primary colours were used up years ago."

"And I'm Agent Magnolia-Cream." From the cat's expression it was not a name he would have chosen. "Who are you and what are you doing?"

Hal looked up at the starry skies innocently; the first signs of dawn were just visible away to the East. "This IS interesting. I'm not allowed to tell you until I know who you are, and visa versa." He studied his finger-feathers nonchalantly. "We could all be standing here till the Energy Vampire taps the whole country dry."

"You're on that too?" Agent Magenta-Fuscia blinked. He visibly hesitated. "We are… well, you've heard of the Agency?"

"Who has not?" Hal replied dryly.

"Yes. Exactly. We're not them. We're the Other Agency." Agent Magenta-Fuscia nodded. "No relation."

"Mmm. That's odd, last year I met the Other Agency and they had a very different style," Hal mused. "they didn't look like you at all."

"Oh, them. They're the other, Other Agency." Agent Magnolia-Cream snapped. A contemplative expression came over his features. "Assuming we're talking about the same people… which if so I neither confirm or deny it might or might not be…"

The terrier shook his head wonderingly. "You Yanks have everything. We can only afford one Secret Government."

"You see? We have such fun, in this career," Hal turned to Shirley, ignoring the newcomers. "Every President has the bright idea of putting together a unit to deal with things so secret he doesn't trust anyone else with. And it's so secret the next President doesn't hear a thing about it, and does the same all over again. So over the years…" He shook his head. "Years ago, I met the last survivor of one group. Not being a Toon, he was very old by then, but there was nobody left who could authorise him to retire. He begged me to deliver what he'd failed to for decades – a box of microfilm addressed _President Taft – for your eyes only_. I did."

"Like, how?" Shirley blinked, impressed.

"The only way I could get it to him." Hal Fenix's eyes were bleak. "With a shovel."

"I dig it." Shirley blinked, looking around. "Whoa! Mondo high powered! The Other Agency just telekinetically jumped out of range." The two avians were suddenly alone on the lofty viewing gallery of the Time Needle. Dawn was getting near.

Hal stretched. "Well, we'll no doubt fall over each other again. Corporal Oughtershaw's a good toon. I remember one case – there was a tragic recipe error in an Indian Restaurant. The curry had been made stronger than the laws of physics could handle – if it wasn't contained, in minutes it'd go super-critical. It'd already started burning holes in Space and Time."

"He had enough psychic powers to, put a warding field around it?" Shirley asked, looking up at the phoenix.

"In a way." Hal winked. "It was him or the curry, toon versus tindaloo – one or the other was going down for keeps. He ate it."

* * *

Dawn in the Lake Acme swamplands saw two plain duck girls making their way across the wetlands, taking turns to carry a large wickerwork hamper. The swamp was home to quite a few toons, and Gladys and Gracie greeted their neighbours cheerfully as they passed on their regular supply run.

Suddenly, Gladys stopped. "That wasn't there two days ago." She pointed to an orange life-raft pulled up on the beach. The structure had a tent-like shelter as part of its design that was currently raised to cover whoever was inside. "It's a life-raft. Maybe someone's in trouble."

"A life-raft, here? Where did that come from? That's the sort you get on major ships. Nothing that'd sail on Lake Acme." Gracie frowned, putting the basket down. "Anyway – if there'd been an accident that big we'd have heard about it."

"We'd better check. Hello, in there!" Gladys tapped on the PVC window of the shelter. "Are you all right?"

There was a stirring from inside, and half a minute later a tousled mop of purple head-feathers resolved itself to a sleep-fuddled duck girl. "Bleah," she said groggily. "It's dawn? I didn't know there was such a time." Perfecto had kept civilized hours, classes never starting till after nine. She could have used a large FoulPlay coffee, but her food supplies were only what the life-raft could carry and there had been little enough room as it was.

Gracie giggled. "I'm Gracie, this is my friend Gladys. We live here. We thought you might be in trouble. If you needed a life-raft."

Margot Mallard, for it was she, combed her head-feathers out of her eyes. "I'm Margot Mallard. I'm in trouble, yes – but nothing urgent. But thanks for asking." She sighed, looking around at the muddy shore. "It's not the kind of neighbourhood I'm used to."

"Can we help?" Gladys asked, running a feather-finger through her own curled head-feathers as she admired the newcomer.

Margot looked at her, and recognised the face from the dossiers she had memorised, and remembered the particular Toon shtick Gladys had – a useful one in business but nothing that would have got her a place in front of the cameras at Acme Looniversity. "You might say I'm the high flyer who fell to earth. Well, water. Mud, even. I had such prospects, but now everything I invested in – it's not turning out as profitable as I hoped." This was true; the latest financial forecast on the Corona Project was two percent under the previous wildly exaggerated estimate, though that was only a matter of a few tens of millions less clear annual profit. "I heard it's cheaper to live here."

Gracie looked over at Gladys, who nodded happily. Gladys could always tell a direct lie when she heard one, and the newcomer was telling the truth. "Welcome to Acme Lake! It's not much to look at but it's the place to be if you're a waterfowl."

Margot smiled. "Thank you. I never thought I'd end up living here. I've been in the neighbourhood before though, visiting. Do you know – Plucky Duck?"

Gracie patted the hamper. "Yes! It's a small world. It happens we're bringing these for him. We come past here every other day. Do you want to come with us and see him? It's not far."

Margot dropped her eyes. "Thank you – but no. Not right now. It'd be embarrassing – if he'd heard all my plans went up in smoke. After everything I'd boasted about them." _Yes it would be, if that ever happened,_ she noted inwardly, spotting Gladys confirming her literal words to her partner.

"A lot of people end up here," Gracie nodded. "It's a natural habitat. We like it. If you need to get back to Nature, it's the place to be. We live on the far side of the lake. If you need any help adjusting, just ask us. Anyone can point out our nest. Though we're not always there."

"You leave your nest unwatched?" Margot's voice showed concern.

"We might as well. It's empty." With that, Gladys picked up the hamper, waved, and the pair waddled off down the lakeshore.

Margot stood and stretched. "Time for a morning dip," she announced; there might not be any microphones around here, but five years of Perfecto habits died hard. She stepped out of her clothes, folding them neatly in the life-raft and dived into the cool waters of the lake, exercising hard for half an hour. She spotted a clean sandbank, and relaxed on it as the warm sun came up over the reed-beds. So far so good; she had her toon heritage to thank that she could publicly walk around in her bare feathers as easily as Shirley or Plucky could.

As far as a casual glance went, there was nobody around. That included the two local duck girls – it would hardly take a minute to swap supplies hampers, which probably meant they were doing something else. Plucky had mentioned they sometimes nest-sat while he took a break – and cut off from TV and radio as he was, he was always bursting to hear the latest news from them. She made a quick calculation, and nodded. "According to the dossier, Gladys is an incurable gossip," she murmured to herself, relaxing on her back. "The chances of her not telling Plucky just where I am, are… small."

Margot stretched and stood up, tossing her damp mop of purple head-feathers back carelessly. She looked left and right, as if checking nobody was watching – and waded out into the shallows, knee-deep. So far so good; in her all-over feathers she was as daytime-TV friendly as Fifi or any of the Toonier crowd. Her peripheral vision caught a slight twitching in the reeds just across the creek, and she inwardly smiled as she looked the other direction.

"A clean body is a healthy body," she said out loud, innocently facing the reed bank, and briefly relaxed – there was a quiet pop and she began to wash her feathers down, preening with her natural oils from the glands on her rump. She had unconcealed to do so, naturally – after all, there was nobody obviously watching, and the lake was the only bathroom she had right now. She turned away and bent over, splashing cool lake water over her bill and spreading her tail-feathers wide.

A plume of steam rose from the reeds, and she smiled as she stroked the natural oils into her plumage. It was not just the Acme Looniversity crowd who loved to play for an audience.

* * *

Two hours later, Margot had moved the life-raft to a more pleasant sandy beach along the lakeside. She nodded as she took stock; her T-pad had decent reception and she could contact her business partners with ease. If they asked, she could say she was relaxing on the beach. That it was Lake Acme rather than the Maldives or the Seychelles, was more than they needed to know.

"Plan of campaign – none." She had decided on a radical experiment. Plucky would be an interesting acquisition, but rather than forcing the issue in many ways she knew well, she would see if Nature would take its course. There was a real chance she might fail, she told herself – but success would be interesting. Artistically ruffling her head-feathers, she walked around the corner to where a certain hand-built nest awaited with its occupants.

"Margot?" Plucky's eyes did not go as wide with surprise as they might; evidently Gladys and Gracie had passed the word along.

"The same. Well, not quite. My prospects are a few million dollars less." Margot was a keen study of Toons, and noted Plucky's face fall though he tried to hide it. "It looks as if we're a little bit – nearer the same level now," she sighed. _A very little bit, yes_, she inwardly noted. "At least – what you've got – doesn't depend on market trends. Those must be the best-cared for eggs I've seen in Acme Acres." _Not that I take an interest in that kind of thing_.

The mallard swelled with pride. "Well, these little green ducklings are going be brought up as part of the ecosystem. True sons of the Toxic Revenger." Plucky raised his beak proudly.

Margot looked at him curiously. "That ecosystem bit. It sounds more like something Shirley would say. Am I right?"

"Well, yeah." Plucky deflated slightly. "But, so?" He tried for the thousandth time to get comfortable on top of the hard yet fragile eggs.

"So. Do you know what it actually means? In practice?" Margot paused, and her eyes widened as she looked at the green nest-cosy that was once a trainee film star. "Oh, Plucky. You still think you'll be looking after a regular toon nursery like in the films, with the hatchlings in diapers, and feeding them from a bottle of formula."

"Sure. Nothing but the best for these little chips off the old block." Plucky tried to ignore the stiff willow twigs of the nest poking his tail. Maintaining the nest was something he kept putting off, telling himself he would be out of it too soon to bother with.

_Blockhead, maybe._ Margot shook her head, pityingly. "Part of the ecosystem – that has a very particular meaning to toons living in the wild. It means brought up as wild birds - like this." She busied herself with her T-pad for a minute, deftly finding online clips from Nature shows and splicing them together. "Diapers and commercial formula cause pollution, and put money into the paws of Evil Mega-Corporations ™. It sounds like Shirley doesn't want to do that. This is what she means." She leaned close to show him the screen, aware that the loon's warding spells would scramble any normal electronics actually in the nest.

Plucky's eyes bulged in a Wild Take better than any he had managed for the Acme Loo final exams. He saw wild birds filmed on the nest – the male and the female taking turns to regurgitate half-digested food for their fledglings, and afterwards – with their beaks they picked up the guano sacs and flew out to drop them well clear of the nest.

"I think I'm going to puke," Plucky moaned.

"Yes, that's the way," Margot encouraged him. "Now you get the idea. It's just a matter of practice."

"But... girls – I mean mothers – they feed their chicks, right? My parents never threw up because of me." He was quite wrong, but feeding the incredibly annoying Baby Plucky had not been the reason. The reason he had stayed an only child was closely related.

"Mmm. In your case, very likely. I met your mother once. She's quite nicely equipped for it, unlike Shirley. And rather more like me." Margot ran a feather-hand down her ample figure. "Oh, I know Shirley changed her basic outline for a while. But that was cosmetic, not functional. She's not inherited any mammal chromoplasm to work with." She smiled inwardly, musing on Toon genetics. _If Plucky ever had a sister, she would have inherited a nicer figure – it goes down the female line. He's the end of that family inheritance._

Plucky's feather-form turned a sickly shade of green. When Margot explained things, a lot of what he had brushed aside as "_something Shirley'll sort out when she gets back_" suddenly fell into place. A lot of it he had been trying hard not to think about. "She said she had to keep concentrating on it, like a Wild Take. And her aura kept bugging her about it being unnatural, till she changed back."

Margot sat back, relaxing. "Want to know a secret? When I cleaned Roderick out for every wooden nickel, do you know one way I celebrated? I had various… biological tweaks done. Now I can do quite a few things by choice most people have to rely on Nature to timetable. There's one in particular… I've not tried it yet, but a week after telling my body what I want, I could be… functional in a way Shirley never can."

"Functional?" Plucky blinked, nonplussed.

Margot winked. "Ironic, isn't it? I thought at the time I might use it for losing weight without exercising. When you're sticking your finger down your throat for the fledglings, saying farewell to a good pizza, just think of that." She breathed in deeply and sighed, the fabric of her blouse straining. "Well. I'll have to be off. I've a lot to learn, settling in around here. And a lot of my Perfecto life to unlearn, it seems." She stood up and left, waving cheerfully.

A green mallard sat for a minute with a puzzled expression, scratching his head-feathers. "Functional? What the hey does she mean?" There was an audible clicking as his brain worked like the tumblers of a combination lock falling into place. Suddenly his eyes bulged in a Take that would have put him on level score with Babs and Buster in the final exams – sadly nobody was there any more to mark it.

From a hundred yards round the corner of the reed-beds, Margot looked round at the sight of a special-effect steam plume rising high into the Autumn skies. She raised an eyebrow, and smiled.

"That mallard," she declared "has energy to burn. It'd be a shame to waste it."

* * *

As that day's dawn had broken over Acme Acres, Babs Bunny had slowly awoken. For a few seconds she wondered where she was – the past months had been a non-stop blur of travel and hotel rooms since her Bunnymoon. The pink bunny opened her eyes. Of course it had not felt like her own almost new bed – she had settled down with cushions in the main room like everyone else, and they had talked late into the night. Marcia had been the first to fall asleep, being constantly jet-lagged (or more accurately rocket-lagged) with her body clock permanently locked to the longer Martian day – or "sol" as she insisted in calling it. For half of every Earth year she felt as if day and night had shifted severely out of position, and having one big moon rather than two proper ones was just plain confusing.

"Good morning!" Mary Melody was up early as usual, walking in from the bathroom with a towel over her arm. "It's a nice day out there – I checked through the periscope." She nodded to the ACME ex-submarine item by the entrance; opening the main burrow door to peek out would have woken up late sleepers as the four-hundred tonne slab slid aside.

Babs yawned, stretching. "'Morning, Mary. You're looking cheerful. A Merry Melody as always." She grinned, looking at her friend. In the warm privacy of the burrow this morning Mary wore only a lacy white silk slip that she could have folded up and hidden in her fist. "Looks like an Action Adventure life with Jaggi's taught you to pack light."

Mary smiled. "I don't wear reporter's business suits all the time – or outdoor bush jackets either." Her eyes flashed. "Jaggi thinks I look good in white – I might not be marrying in it, but I think I'll be honeymooning in it!"

"You do look good in that lace." Rhubella nodded, the rat reclining on pillows next to her still slumbering skunkette. "Better than we would. Fur and lace don't mix. Or rather, they mix all too well. I'd get the most awful tangles."

Babs struck a pose, pulling a microphone from Hammerspace. "I can see it all now. _And walking down the aisle we see for the last time Miss Mary Melody – in all her radiant beauty! Calamity's instruments officially confirm we only saw at most 86.3 percent of it before_." Her ears went up. "Heh. It'd make a nice change, you making the news and me doing the reporting." She returned the microphone and spin-changed into a classical journalist with trench coat, slouch hat with a ticket labelled "Press" in the brim, and large notebook. "So, Miss Melody. What's your next exciting adventure going to be? The public demand to know."

Mary was about to reply when her attention was caught by a flashing alarm by the burrow entrance. She was nearest the periscope, and took a quick spin with it around the full circle before turning to Babs, her eyes wide in alarm. "It just found us. The adventure, I mean. I think it's more like the plots Jaggi goes casting for."

"Let's guess – there's a horde of slobbering zombies crawled up out of Lake Acme, hungry for the chromoplasm of the living?" Babs waggled her eyebrows.

"Worse. Take a look. I was wrong to think you were going overboard with getting your home burrow an ex-Minuteman silo door." Mary pulled the periscope a few inches further down to show her bunny friend; she was taller than Babs these days. "I only hope it's enough."

"They're heeeerrreeee…" Babs' ears drooped as she spun the periscope around. Closing in from all sides were six figures, dressed in tall red hunting caps and green oilcloth hunting outfits that had looked unstylish on Professor Fudd in the 1950's and did absolutely nothing for their modern owners' looks. Each figure carried a net and an aerial photograph, presumably of Acme Forest.

"Houston, we have a problem." Babs turned to face her friends. "The Elmyra Swarm has landed."

End Chapter Five


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"Ah! Acme Acres! Home of the Brave. And around here, we need to be." Just after breakfast-time, Buster Bunny surfaced from a long-distance tunnel that had started in the parking lot of Multiversal Studios, Hollywood. He had good news and less good news; although he had been picked for their next comedy epic, it was a part for one. Still, he reflected – he and Babs had always known that sometimes it would be just one or the other of them wanted on a project; the Bollywood gig had been a wonderful joint start to their careers, but it was never going to be typical.

The blue and white buck shook earth out of his ears, as he looked around the forest. Although he still hated flying, with Babs around he could put up with it – but given the choice, a rabbit was more at home under the earth than at thirty thousand feet above it. _It's the exception that proves the rule_, he reminded himself, thinking distastefully of George Clumper, the dim buck who was currently mate to Elmyra. _Doesn't like carrots, no smarts, and claustrophobic as well… it's no wonder no proper doe ever looked twice at that lunk._

Dismissing that idea like spitting out a rotten carrot, Buster looked around, his long blue ears twitching. For a minute or so he surveyed the scene, and his finely tuned rabbit senses began to sound discreet alarms. "It's quiet. Too quiet." The woods were usually peaceful enough in the mornings but there was an ever-present background of wild types going about their business, with the occasional jogger or on-line skater on the paths. Not this morning; there was a deathly hush over the forest. His inbuilt danger sense began to focus. There was something directly ahead.

_The last thing I want to do is head for my home burrow – until I know what's happening. No sense leading whatever it is to my door. Babs and the girls were having that sleepover. They might not even be up yet_. He took a deep breath, slipped underground and started to stealthily burrow. Normally the shtick of rabbit tunnelling kicked up a line of disturbed earth on the surface like the wake of a speedboat; by cutting to about a quarter speed he could move quietly, just at the edge of Hammerspace. Once at the edge of a clump of bushes, his ears poked up through the turf and swivelled like a blue periscope, an eyeball manifesting at their tip. Suddenly that eye blinked, and the periscope rapidly vanished underground. He had seen what had come to town.

* * *

"Gotcha!" Two hundred yards away was a larger clump of bushes, where three of the Elmyra swarm were quite well concealed courtesy of years of pet-hunting. One of them, distinguished only by her blonde wig under her Fudd styled hunting cap, was pointing what looked like a long tube with telescopic sighting grids at where Buster had briefly appeared. "I knew there'd be one around here somewhere. This is where all the local cute animals hang out."

"Yes! We knew this is the place to look. Did you get a good reading of the bunnyscope?" The Chinese-looking Elmyra glanced up at her comrade's detection device.

The blonde-haired Elmyra's eyes went wide as she peered at the dials. "Did I? We knew he was a bunny rabbit – but not just how bunny. I've got all three filters on in series. But the detectors saturated at two hundred metres! The readings went clear off the scale." She touched the outer filter, gave a brief yelp and sucked at a scorched fingertip. "We need a bigger scale."

"Ooooooh." Three voices spoke as one. "That's one incredibly bunny rabbit! We wants him! We wants him!"

Suddenly the African-American Elmyra frowned. "Where is Elmyra? She should have met us at the airport. She ought to be here helping. These are her home woods after all." Six heads turned towards a spot on the horizon where Acme Acres' Elmyra Duff's house lay.

"Do we grab the bunny first or see what's happened to Elmyra first?" The Indian Elmyra scratched her head, puzzlement in her voice as she voiced what they were all thinking. All six paused for half a minute as their collective IQ got to grips with the problem.

"Let's go and wake Elmyra up first," the brown-haired Elmyra declared, her eyes wide. "It's been a year. It'll be peachy-keen all of us being back together!"

"Yayyyy!" All six chorused, turning like a formation marching team, shouldering their nets and detection devices as if they were ACME surplus bazookas. Six pairs of eyes gleamed with an intense blankness more usual in insects; decidedly the swarm had landed. A million locusts would have been a more welcome sight.

* * *

A few minutes later, Buster raised his ears again to scan the area. "Saved by the bell!" He declared. A few seconds later he scratched his head-fur thoughtfully. "Wait, it's our Elmyra they're looking for. Saved by the dumb-bell!"

Carefully checking for the swarm returning, he circled round through the bushes to where an ACME-surplus periscope was circling slowly. He waved at its lens, and gave a quick thumbs-up sign – followed by the secret code signal thumped on the ground with an inimitable bunny foot.

Ten seconds later the old silo door slid open a yard, and Babs popped her head out. She grinned at her buck. "Buster! Glad you remembered the code."

Buster nodded, leaning back nonchalantly against a tree as he pulled out a pair of carrots and offered one to Babs. "It's better than nothing. But don't you think the old "_shave and a haircut_" is just a little bit obvious?"

"Mon dieu! We are being ze besieged bunny-'ole." Beside her, Fifi emerged. "Bustair! You 'ave chased zem away?"

Buster shook his head. "It ain't me, babe – though it was me they're looking for." He paused. "They've gone to see what's new with Elmyra. When they find Rymela instead I don't think they're going to like it. Then they'll be back."

Fifi shivered. "I nevair felt I would evair be feeling sorry for Elmyra, zat month she 'ad me caged as ze pet. But – is zere anything we can do for 'er?"

Babs and Buster looked at each other. At length Babs spoke. "If she wants to ask for our help – she's got it. But it's her bunch, and she's got to decide."

Fifi nodded. "Tu as raison, Babs. But now – eet ees time to vanish like ze snows of yesteryear, non? Zat way we are not all together ze target."

Babs smiled, and hugged the skunkette. "It was great to see you guys again! But now – me and Buster have a lot to talk about."

The party broke up, Fifi and Rhubella making their way through the woods to the burrow next to Babs' original family home. Fifi's eyes and tail were on full alert, ready to spray any marauding Elmyras on sight. At last they reached the burrow and happily shut the steel door behind them.

"Zis is ze strain on ze tail," Fifi lowered her purple-and-white brush, shivering. "Being all ze time ready for ze spraying – ze tensions are like 'olding ze breath."

"Well, we're safe for now. Your tail needs some… relaxation." Rhubella opened the bathroom door, and ran a hot bath. "Fifi – bring that tail of yours over here." She winked. "And the rest of you."

Fifi smiled. "Ze wish eez my command." She closed her eyes and "unconcealed" letting Rhubella massage her with soap and skilled fingers. "Le sigh. You are getting good at zis, Ruby."

"This is the best part of being married. Now I get to do this all the time." Rhubella ran a coarse towel over Fifi's tail, setting the skunkette shivering as she squeezed the water out. She smiled, as Fifi flopped down on her front on the bed, another towel underneath her. "And now – if this was the Acme Acres military cadet class… it'd be weapon inspection! Present arms! And tails!"

Fifi giggled, raising her tail. "I am ze lucky girl. To 'ave found ze mate 'oo likes zis!"

"It's a concealed weapon you don't need a license for. And – it's you." Rhubella gently combed the long, lustrous purple fur of Fifi's rump. "Mmmm." She gently teased with her comb to expose the skunkette's freshly washed and massaged musk glands, combing the damp fur away in a spiral pattern. "I must be the only one around with skunk gland envy."

Fifi turned to look at her, eyes wide. Her damp head-fur flopped over one eye. "Truly, Ruby?"

"Truly. When the stork brings us our little bundle… I hope it's mostly from your side of the family." Opening the bedside drawer, she took out a pack of cotton buds and a small bottle of oil. "Now – to clean the working parts of the weapon." Her chisel teeth gleamed as she smiled in anticipation. "We had a ROTC class in Perfecto – though most of the Toons in it went straight into, um, "private enterprise". The Government doesn't pay enough."

Fifi's eyes crossed as Rhubella went to work. "Eet was only 'alf a year ago, on ze Spring break… when zis cost me mon 'Amton, aftair 'ees parents said zey could never live with zis." She shivered. "I even did ze research, thinking I must 'ave myself… de-scented to keep 'im."

"I'm so very glad you didn't. You're just the way you were meant to be." Rhubella kissed her. The room suddenly began to scent of Fifi. "You're amazing! I can actually see you fuming like a boiling kettle. Twin boiling kettles." She paused, her naked tail twitching slightly. "I'm glad you weren't left always having to do this for yourself, cleaning everything. I mean, Hamton's nice and cleaning's his thing, but he's so scent paranoid… he'd have zipped himself into a chemical warfare suit by now – or run away screaming."

Fifi nodded. "'Is parents, Wade and Winnie, zey could not live with ze idea of zeir grandchildren being ze skunks." She paused. "And yours zey do not mind?"

Rhubella's finger gently traced a circle through the fur around Fifi's left musk gland. "I don't know what shocks them most. When they heard who I was marrying, first they were worried I couldn't give them grandchildren." She patted the stork feather gratefully; somehow it never seemed to pick up any dirt, and was as pristine as the day it had been offered to her. "Well, that's one thing they can't complain about now."

"Le sigh." Fifi relaxed, closing her eyes and letting Rhubella comb her. Suddenly she giggled. "Zat took ze circumstances… extreme. Eet did with Shirley and Plucky, aussi. Miss Granny she say zat ees ze way with Toons. Or ze world would be up to ze roof in zem." She paused. "I wondair 'ow my 'Amton… came to be? Knowing zose parents of 'is. Zey cannot stand ze idea of anything… with ze mess."

"Mmm. I've not met them, but I've read the dossier. You know, we had dossiers on everyone. They make the later Howard Hughes look insanitary." Rhubella's eyes went wide. "About Hamton, I suppose we'll never know. But… I'm imagining they got into something like accidental mud-wrestling. That would fit."

Fifi's eyes popped wide open. "Mon dieu! I think zat would do ze trick! And – ' Amton, 'e is ze only child. Ze event, must 'ave been something so… embarrassing, nevair again."

Rhubella ran her fingers through her wife's gorgeous expanse of tail. "I don't know about embarrassing, but – I'll do my best to arrange you something memorable." She looked up into her wife's eyes. "If you're really sure about this?"

Fifi nodded, her tail shivering at the idea. "Oh, oui. I am in your 'ands, Ruby. Ze only thing ees – 'ow can I embrace le 'andsome skunk 'unk, look 'im in ze eyes, aftair I said to vous "forsaking all othairs"?"

Suddenly Rhubella's eyes flashed, as an idea hit her. For a second her face took on one of her old Perfecto expressions, usually seen when she had calculated the perfect setup that would move her plans forward. "Ohh… I think I can see a way around that." Her tail wound around Fifi's, losing itself in the skunkette's huge expanse of lustrous purple fur. "Just you wait and see." She giggled. "I'll promise you two things. No married men – that leaves Professor Le Pew out of it – and nobody we've not met before." She paused. "But with the number who've crossed our path since we got engaged – that should be plenty to choose from!"

* * *

Shirley awoke in mid-morning, with two things on her mind. One was that she had not had nearly enough sleep – and the other was the trailer's loud emergency alarm, that was the reason she was so suddenly awake. She blinked, sitting up in bed; fortunately the film-star cover identity had comfortable furniture in the trailer to match, rather than a plain military cot.

"This is like a total drag. But I'd better get used to it." She grabbed her green jacket, shrugged it on over bare feathers, and stepped out to face whatever was heading her way. Surprisingly, this time her neighbour Angelina was not the cause of the problems.

For a second she looked around; the compound seemed empty. Then her aura spotted the glowing "ka" of Pvs. Lewis, the canine's incorporeal form loosely tied to the comatose body in the freeze-frame casket on the far side of the filming lot.

_Everyone else was called out an hour ago. They're tackling another zombie outbreak in Walla Walla, Washington. They left me behind; I'm no use against physical-only threats. And the alarm just rang again. This is local. And urgent_. The retriever gestured towards the trailer that was labelled "Props Department_". It looks like you're the only one physically around_.

"Like, nobody left but me and a spirit? Total post-apocalypseville." Shirley sent her aura in through the side of the command trailer, penetrating the wardings that would have kept any spirit out who was not officially attuned to them. Her blue-glowing figure took one look at the threat board and her ethereal feathers bristled outwards in alarm. "Mondo apocalypse is right! Mother Earth's got a trespasser again who's here to totally crash the party!"

_Can you take me and my support along?_ Pvs. Lewis looked up hopefully. _I have to stay within a thousand paces of my body. But you can do telekinesis_?

Shirley thought of the big freeze-frame casket, and shook her head. "Way too heavy. I'll need all the power I've got for this. Tell Colonel Fenix where I've like gone, okay?" With that she levitated, and floated out over the hills and traffic of California, casting the illusion of a weather balloon around her form.

* * *

Far out at the edge of Los Angeles, a sprawl of tract housing lay across the valley where an orange grove used to be. Every house had a swimming pool; this time of the morning in mid-week they were all empty of bathers. All except one.

From a distance, the scene looked peaceful. What appeared to be a pinkish Toon bear girl was reclining on a floating airbed in the middle of a pool, doing something that could have been interpreted as making an elaborate cocktail. At least, she had a silvery flask and several bottles on a floating pool tray. A closer look would have shown a pair of silvery rods wired to an electrical supply. She giggled, looking up at a drifting weather balloon that was floating closer as she prepared to switch the current on.

"Like totally hold it!" A stern voice ordered. "You are mondo out of tune with this existence." Shirley dispelled the balloon illusion and floated just above the pool – a hundred and sixty cubic metres of mostly fresh water, normally the safest element to contain an invader on – but not when the trespasser was a Careless Bruin with an Acme Junior Home Physics set.

The Careless Bruin wrinkled her muzzle. "You're no fun. I know you. We've seen you before. You had a different body back when you tried to break up our innocent "show and tell" party years ago, on Planet Monza. Well, you didn't get to spoil things for us then. It was so funny!" She twitched an ear vaguely skywards; both of them knew she was thinking of the planet that used to lie in what was now the asteroid belt.

"Mondo negatory vibes. Like, are you going to split the scene, or do I have to get un-harmonious?" Shirley's aura powered up, ready to blast the intruder.

The bear stuck her plush tongue out. "Spoilsport!" She summoned a sickly pastel-coloured dimensional rift that made Shirley's eyes water to look at, and prepared to dive back into it. Just at the last instant, she turned. "Here, catch!" She threw the device high into the air – and vanished from EinsToonian spacetime.

Shirley's eyes went wide. Time seemed to slow down as she focussed her telekinesis on the tumbling device – her feather-body splashed down into the pool unheeded, every drop of her powers needed elsewhere. Her aura grabbed the heavy rods, holding them up an inch above the pool. Pale-glowing blue eyes widened; the Careless Bruin's own unnatural aura had touched these, making them slippery – and they were slipping out of her feather-fingers towards the pool.

"Gah!" Just in time, Shirley's material form re-surfaced, grabbing the rods and throwing them out onto the poolside. She slid out of the water and flopped alongside the Plot Device, gasping in nervous reaction.

Suddenly her aura looked around, and tapped her on her shoulder. By a Toon shtick she had never seen demonstrated at Acme Looniversity, three black-suited figures came running up the stairs from a New York subway station that had definitely not been there seconds earlier. She recognised them.

"Ey, lass. What were all that about?" Corporal Oughtershaw looked round the deserted scene, panting for breath. "We just got the call. Got us a Ouija board reading from ten minutes into the future – the local afterlife was going to get – crowded all of a sudden."

"Agent Red-brown, let us handle this. And quit telling the rivals about our classified techniques." The feline Shirley had heard called Agent Magnolia-cream snapped.

Shirley sniffed. "This is so totally bogus. Like, the things that we're up against, care who our boss is? That was a Careless Bruin, must have sneaked away from that trailer park incursion before we got there – and you're mondo too slow. I fixed it."

Corporal Oughtershaw looked down at the abandoned device. "What's that?"

"You guys ought to have a word with the ACME Corporation." Shirley nodded towards the discarded box on the poolside next to its contents. "Just because ACME can't get Cold Fusion working here, doesn't mean there's like some Universe where their laws of Toon physics say it can. Especially if they think it's funny. And next to a rift to their plane of being, it'd have worked."

The feline's eyes bulged. "It was going to give us the gift of limitless free energy – that'd solve so many problems. And you chased it away?"

Shirley's beak wrinkled. "Oh, it'd have totally solved a lot of problems round here, fer sure." She picked up the silvery Palladium rods, and unplugged the battery leads. "It was about to turn this swimming pool into radically inharmonious nuclear energy. All of it. Like, there goes the neighbourhood? And everyone else's out to the Mid-West?"

All three agents of the Other Agency looked at each other, ears going down. "We could… use it safely with a drop of water at a time?" The bear asked hopefully.

"You're welcome to try. But unless you're a Careless Bruin and you think that'd be funny – you're wasting your time. Have fun!" With that, Shirley waved and levitated away.

* * *

"I hate to say it, people – but we are not winning this one." The scene was later that afternoon, and as soon as the rest of Unit Four Plus Two returned Colonel Fenix had called an emergency meeting. "We're tasked with hunting this energy vampire, and it's urgent – but other work doesn't stop coming in while we're doing it." He inclined his head gratefully towards Shirley. "We are going to have to get more Toons on the team, and fast."

He looked around. "I've already sent off for more buzzards from the desert reservations – that's good as far as it goes but we need talents, as well. Anyone know any suitable names?"

Shirley blinked. She thought of various friends at Acme Loo who had their own abilities – Calamity and Marcia sprang to mind. But that was the problem – they were friends, and Unit Four Plus Two was in a dangerous business. Her life was hers to risk; she had laid her eggs and made sure her line in Acme Acres would continue even if she had to reincarnate elsewhere. Plucky would look after them_. Sure…_ her aura commented sourly. _We've seen just how harmoniously he does that. Poor Brandi and Candi._

The loon shook her head, dismissing the thought. _We've, like, already survived some totally sanity-shattering revelations that'd wipe out most Toons, okay? Finding out just how kittens get so cute in the time they've got available to learn… eww. What'd that do to most people?_ It was not a comfortable knowledge to be walking around with. Asking her friends to risk their sanity was a very different matter. She shuddered, thinking of what had happened to Sergeant Macree, the mink who was currently back in his padded barrack-room with a straitjacket and a muzzle restraining him till his savage talents were called for.

Fortunately for her conscience, Angelina Angelique put her feather-hand up first. "I can lead you to a crowd of Toons who'd just love to like, wade in to this."

"The money's not wonderful, you know that," Colonel Fenix warned.

But the magpie grinned. "Money? I know folk who'd do it for kicks – and a "_get out of jail free_" card or three to spend in the holidays."

An hour later, Shirley was finding out just what she meant. Her aura was feeling definitely nauseous, though what an immaterial form could throw up was a question for the philosophers.

"My old alma mater! Addams Academy is a happening place." Angelina looked up innocently as they stepped out of a fortuitous rocket sled test track that had "somehow" brought them to Northern Oregon. It was raining. "We get all sorts of creative types enrolling. We've got high-powered mystics like you and me. High-energy metaphysics grads! The steam-tunnels under the campus link with miles of abandoned gold-mines, full of totally hostile dead miners' spirits you can channel and let loose in town till dawn when things get dull. Like, that Disney Fantasia "Night on a bare mountain" on steroids. And we've got top-ranking disturbed and sinister artists – they come from all over the country, for the quality of darkness we get. There's special pumps extracting it from the bottom of the mines for use in our classes."

Shirley's beak wrinkled in distaste. "That gets my chakras so totally out of tune." There was a good reason why Unit Four Plus Two had only extremes of mental ability; a "normal" mind would rapidly shatter under the impact of what it would be exposed to, without having the high-level shielding she and Toons such as Colonel Fenix could put up. She had survived plenty of sanity-blasting revelations in the past month; now she knew the real reasons for World War Two, the early cancelling of the Apollo lunar explorations, and tapioca. But shielding or not, the magpie definitely rubbed her orgone flows up the wrong way.

Angelina's black eyes glittered. "I can fix that! I'm into like crucially realigning energy flows." She rummaged in her Toon pocket, pulling out a handful of square section ten-inch lumber spikes and an industrial nail-gun. The magpie's sharp beak split in a grin of anticipation. "I do a radical acupuncture session like you wouldn't believe. And like you'll never forget."

"Ladies, please," Colonel Fenix shook his head. "We're almost there. Just past the Temple of the Jogging Buddha, I think this is the place?"

Shirley looked up. True, the McLoon family home was as Gothic as anything on that side of the continent, and would have looked far more at home in sight of the ancient MiskaToonic University on the East Coast than in California - but at least it was not festooned with jagged black spiky bits.

Colonel Fenix followed her gaze. "Ah. The décor. It was designed to deter parachute landings in the invasion scare of 1942… or at least, that was the excuse they gave. I can't deny they've always been a bleeding-edge establishment."

Angelina snickered, but looked away innocently as Hal turned a questing eye her way.

"After all, they did the original research that put the K in Gothick." Colonel Fenix continued. "And we could use some extra help."

"You're going to enlist these toons, to defend the country? Like appeal to their better natures? If they're like Miss Carrion-fan here that'll be a lost cause. I can feel the spiritual smog from here." Shirley shivered. "I thought Perfecto was bad. At least they didn't give like sorcery a bad name."

"Better natures?" Hal mused. "Well, if we can find any. Otherwise" – he nodded towards Angelina. "While they're deputised, they get the chance to do for their country what they'd otherwise want to do anyway – but pointed in the right directions, it's legal."

Shirley spotted four toons exiting the building, two crows and two bats clad in mostly black outfits. "Eww. They think rebar and railroad spikes are cool to use as piercings? Like, straight through the skull?" The ACME joke catalogue naturally included the fake "Arrow through head" gag, but there was nothing fake about these. From Plucky's memories she spotted one of the straight-through piercings was a depleted uranium rod from a modern anti-tank shell. All four walked very sedately and oddly gracefully as if they were in deportment lessons at a finishing school; evidently in terms of centre of gravity having twenty-pound cranial piercings was the equivalent to balancing books on one's head.

Angelina snickered. "Fer sure. I always wanted one but – we flying birds got to watch our power-weight ratio, you know?" She stretched her feather-arms out, surveying their glossy black plumage. "We've got a school beautician. She's got a totally retro-cool thirty-ton steam-hammer for the job." Her eyes gleamed, looking Shirley up and down. "You should try it! You'd look hip for a change. A couple of feet of railway steel is cheap enough."

Shirley's beak wrinkled as Angelina greeted her former junior classmates. "Like, gross." She could see their auras; unlike her pale blue glowing astral form these were more like hungry shadows.

Angelina waved over one of her black-clad friends, a slender vampire bat with a two-foot length of bridge girder cranial piercing adding thirty pounds to her weight. "Hey! Shirley, this is Lucretia. She's in their senior year. Excuse her if she doesn't bow – it's a centre-of-gravity thing."

Shirley looked at the bat, aghast. "Like, even for a Toon – doesn't that, totally affect your brain or some junk?"

The bat grinned. "Way, fer sure. But if you had the choice between being out of style and a date with a thirty-tonne drop hammer – no contest."

"I hear the boutiques are bringing in forty-tonne drop hammers next season," Angelina commented slyly.

"Whoa! That'd be so cool!" Lucretia made the mistake of nodding, overbalanced and fell over with a metallic clang.

Colonel Fenix looked on, an eyebrow raised. "Ensign Angelique – if you can find us four Talents who won't be hauled away by the first villain with an electromagnet – bring them over and I'll interview them. Now – we need to make best use of what established talents we have." He turned to Shirley, and smiled. "How would you like a little home leave?"

* * *

Half an hour later, via the use of a strangely mis-routed supersonic Japanese Gag-lev train, most of Unit Four Plus Two stepped off the platform at Acme Acres. They had left the buzzards behind, not expecting any need for them. Standing on the platform with his feathers barely ruffled by the shock wave of the departing Gag-lev train, Colonel Fenix nodded to his Sergeant. "Clarke. We expect to be here a few hours. I believe you have someone you might like to meet around here?"

"Yes Sir! I'll be back when you call!" Clarke Gander smiled, saluted and vanished through a portable hole. His fiancée Maria Mandarin was in for a pleasant surprise that afternoon.

"And now… to visit Miss McLoon Senior. The energy vampire is more on her lines." Hal stuck his feather-hand out and a bus pulled up bound for Acme Woods. The general public would never believe that a military force would take the bus; hence Unit Four Plus Two travelled that way quite a lot. _Black helicopters are so passé,_ Hal reflected as the bus pulled away from the station.

Ten minutes later, Shirley was looking around the kitchen of her family home for the first time in a month. Little had changed, with the exception of a large basketwork project that she recognised as the beginnings of a nest. "Like, wierdsville. That is a way freaky idea; I'm going to have siblings." Shirley had heard the news a week ago, but seeing the nest brought the reality of it home to her. She was glad the room was large; Fifi and Rhubella had been visiting her mother when she arrived, and meeting them made a happy bonus for the trip.

"Now then, Ensign McLoon. I believe you passed your Acme Looniversity exams with top marks. You've not forgotten all those Toon biology classes so soon, I hope?" A small smile twitched on the corner of Hal Fenix's beak.

"Certain-mundo I remember. Older Toons can have families, fer sure. But they generally... just don't." She had not missed the disappointed look on Angelina Angelique's face when the magpie had spotted the nest was unfinished and empty. Shirley supressed a shudder.

Melicent McLoon looked up at the ceiling innocently. "It is pleasant having a younger male around the house sometimes. When it comes to seizing the moment… if a honeymoon suite's not handy, I've found the kitchen table quite acceptable." She paused. "Not as comfortable, but dramatic – and drama is what it takes for an egg, it would seem."

Shirley gagged. "For totally years, I ate my breakfast on that table!"

Fifi winked to Rhubella. "Most family cuisines, zey are places where ze eggs are eaten at breakfast. On zis one – zey are made," she whispered.

"Eggs!" Angelina's eyes suddenly gleamed. "Did someone mention eggs? High-energy eggs?"

Hal Fenix coughed quietly. "Ensign Angelique. You might like to know I've authorised a very particular shielding spell for these, when they are laid."

"Oh, shielding spells." Angelina dismissed the idea with a flick of her glossy feather-hand. "Never saw me one around an egg that'd take longer to crack than its contents."

"You never saw this one. It's not in the kind of grimoire you find in a public library." For a second the phoenix's eyes hardened. "You could say it's combined with an astral travel spell. Six hundred and sixty-six astral planes straight down."

"Ze rough neighbourhood," Fifi noted. "Shirley – eet 'as been ages! Vous are going to see Plucky aftair zis?"

Shirley opened her beak to reply – and suddenly froze. She noticed Angelina carefully watching her. "Plucky. Don't remind me. He'll, like, keep for another day." Even with her best shielding spells up, standing right next to the inquisitive and hungry magpie she was not going to risk thinking about her nest. She had a nasty suspicion that Angelina's powers were on a par with her own, and intercepting one clear mental image of Plucky and her eggs would be as good as giving the magpie its grid reference.

Fifi drew in her breath sharply. "Shirley?"

Shirley nodded. "It was like great to see you – mondo pity I had to miss that sleepover. But I'm in a totally busy job now – and it looks like I'm staying."

"You are staying in ze Toon army? 'Ave you… talked zis over? What about ze family?" Fifi's eyes widened.

"Mother's copacetic with it. And she knows what sort of uncool things I'm up against." Shirley felt a hard-edged mental probe coming in from somewhere. She thought hard of the time Plucky had begged her to marry her in a full Church ceremony like Babs and Buster – and of how she had turned him down. That was the image she let a certain magpie's probe get a good look at before reacting to the intrusion and throwing it out. Her aura sensed the ploy and reinforced it with her own opinion – _Colonel Fenix is SO much more like nesting material_…

"Yes, dear." Melicent had been communing telepathically with Colonel Fenix since they arrived; she nodded to the tall phoenix as she agreed to his plan. "You have a very elusive, very ancient spirit to track down. I'll take charge of the hunt if you're all ready to go in when I know where to send you." She frowned. "This thing is ancient, and clever. It's using modern guerrilla tactics though – '_disperse to hide, gather to fight_'. That is, it's only truly in one place and time when it feeds. And that's the best chance of catching it."

"And then we stake it and tap it dry?" Angelina's eyes gleamed hungrily. "It must have gathered a ton of life-force by now, I am SO sure!"

"Quite. Or something like that. But don't start planning your recipe till you've caught the ingredients." Melicent cast an appraising eye over her. She turned to Fifi and Rhubella. "I'm glad I could help you. But it seems Duty calls now. I'll be in touch."

"Duty?" Fifi looked at Shirley, then at the half-built nest reminding her of Shirley's own in the swamps not a mile away that her friend seemed to have lost all interest in. "Merci. But 'zis sort of Duty, I 'ope I will nevair need! Come, Ruby." The two of them rose and left.

Outside, Fifi turned and looked round at the McLoon household. She blinked back tears. "I am not believing eet. Shirley. She 'as not ze word to say for poor Plucky or 'er own eggs! She is so close but… not even un petite visit to look at 'zem?"

Rhubella pulled a face. "She's been away a month. It can't be too long till the eggs hatch – they must be well over half-way now. I'd have thought she could have managed at least one evening at home. She was telling me she's got access to rapid travel shticks."

Fifi nodded sadly. "Before she joined, she was ze worried about paying off ze bad karma. I think she 'as only taken on ze extra ration of eet. Leaving poor Plucky on ees own like 'zat."

* * *

Not far down the hill, the nest in question was not particularly deserted. True, Plucky was in it, but Margot was relaxed on a life-raft cushion two metres away. Plucky loved to talk, and Margot was a good listener – as they had often told her at Perfecto, "a closed beak spills no secrets." She was sure that nobody ever had enough information.

"I'll just check this still works. I've not needed it around here." Margot checked the batteries of the Sniffer, and experimentally pointed it at various objects around the swamp. Plants and fish had predictable hazards; danger lurked in frosts or storms for one, and fish-hooks and wading birds for the other. On a whim, she pointed it at Plucky. And stopped dead.

"Well, well." She held her voice steady. "Plucky… you said Shirley wanted you staying here because she wanted to keep you safe?"

The mallard drake nodded. "Sure! She said one of us getting in the line of fire… and adventure... and far-out things, was enough." Shirley was having all the fun, making rock videos with his hero Frank Sikosis – a Toon who had often strenuously denied ever having bitten a live yak's head off on stage – which as Plucky kept telling himself, obviously proved it had really happened.

"So, she can tell the future? She's doing a very bad job of it. Or she's just not telling you what she sees" Margot tapped the Sniffer. "I hate to say it but – this says you're in extreme peril. Right now. And you have been for days."

"What? Where? When? Who? How?" Plucky blinked, casting about himself in panic, as if expecting to see a torpedo track bubbling across the lake, or the familiar white glowing streak on the horizon of an anvil punching into the atmosphere.

"That's the funny thing. It can't spot any direction." Studying the display, Margot noted the dot on the screen was much as it might be indicating fatal diseases – except another check showed it was not that at all; somewhere there was an intention to harm. The Sniffer was only a prototype device, and in a world of hurt it had many factors needing to calibrate against.

She frowned, and thought back to her Perfecto ethics classes. "A great man once said, '_the great masses of the people – will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one._' Some things are too big to grasp if you're standing in the middle of them. You have to step back and get a distant view."

Plucky blinked, looking at the Sniffer. "That gizmo can read the future?"

"Mmm. In a way. It won't tell you tomorrow's lottery numbers. But if there was a grand piano coming out of orbit right now somewhere over Hawaii and you at the end of the flight path – yes, it'd tell you it's time to dodge. It should also tell you which way to step. But in your case – it's not." Margot tapped thoughtfully on the cover of the Sniffer. No doubt several pianos were on the way down towards other Toons that minute, the keyboards and candle-holders beginning to glow slightly in the friction of re-entry, but the sniffer was not seeing any virtual X around Lake Acme.

"Oh joy. It is to laugh." Plucky looked left and right around the swamp. "They couldn't build an anvil shelter around here – we're in wetlands." For a few seconds he cast about in panic – then he gave a sigh, and straightened his shoulders. "Well, bring it on, whatever it is – when it gets here it'll find it has Plucky Duck to deal with!"

Margot looked at the drake, an eyebrow raised a fraction of a millimetre. She had expected him to beg a loan for a fast ticket to Rio, with two eggs as hand luggage. There were some types of fate people carried along with them, and changing the scenery would not help.

Suddenly Plucky caught sight of her watch, and leaned over to get a closer look. "Gladys and Gracie are almost due here! Woo-hoo! It's exercise break for Cell Block Plucky!"

Margot stood, stretching. "They're good respectable toons. Perfecto taught us how to value people like that. Character witnesses, as long as you make sure what side of your character you show them. Can't have them finding us in… compromising positions." She stepped back, and sighed. "I'll go and take a swim – I could use a good wash in this heat. I'm sure you've got hours' worth of things to talk about with them. Till next time!"

She waved, and made her way around the corner to the reed beds where a pleasant sandbank was just offshore. At the end of Summer the lake was low, but the rains would be coming soon enough, and then things would be very different in the swamps. Margot frowned slightly. It was one thing to relax and sunbathe for a few days, but Acme Acres in mid-November would be a lot less entertaining. She set herself a limit; she would stay till the first frosts, and if without forcing the issue she failed to get a certain mallard in her own nest by then, move on. "If you're not in bed by ten, go home," she murmured.

Wading out to the sandbank, she looked around painstakingly, checking there was nobody obviously watching. If a certain mallard male was not very soon feasting his eyes from deep cover in the reeds, she would be most surprised. She slipped out of her bathing costume and "unconcealed", brushing her feather-fingers over her form as certain parts of her expensively re-touched model sheet became immediately more sensitive. Unusually so, in fact.

Margot looked down, her eyes widening. Suddenly she snickered to herself, no doubt puzzling any distant watchers. _Well, well. I didn't expect this. I knew I could start things developing if I wanted it enough – but folk didn't say how hard I'd need to try. I have been thinking about eggs and nests quite a lot, after all_. Silently, she nodded. Briefly she considered sending the countermand to her body – and shook her head. _This feels like it might be… very interesting. I don't think even my mentor Hatta Mari ever tried this._

Suddenly she frowned, glancing over to the waterproof case on the shore that held the Sniffer. Before, if someone had told her Plucky was not going to be what Perfecto called a "Long-term resource" she would have either cast him aside, or enjoyed using him in her short-term plans like a Perfecto Sports Scholar doomed to be replaced. Now… she imagined how she would have felt if one of Roderick's rivals had managed to financially wipe the rat out before her own plans had ripened. In Plucky's case, anything that caused him any harm would mean she, Margot Mallard, had wasted her time and effort – and that was something she hated. Other things could be bought back.

"Plucky. In danger. Project, saving, required urgently. Yes." An unfamiliar sensation came over her. She stopped, and smiled. "I do believe I'm planning to commit a Good Deed!"

* * *

Not a mile away from the lakeside, the six unaltered members of the Elmyra Swarm were sitting down with a collective puzzled look as they tried to make sense of the day's events. Though they seemed harmless enough for the minute, two figures had been keeping them under careful watch all day.

"This Martian fade-cloth will shield us from any Toon-detection they have, at any range. They could be standing on us and they'd not even see the bumps underneath." Marcia pulled the truck-tarpaulin-sized sheet over them both. "We use it a lot back home. Better than ACME."

Calamity frowned. It somehow felt disloyal not ordering from the ACME catalogue. _Their products are well designed, as far as designs go,_ his sign read. _It's just their materials let them down. They're intended to be built from alloys of Unobtanium, and they can't get any_.

Marcia nodded, her ultra-black hand invisible against the stealth tarpaulin. "The swarm won't eyeball us with these cool threads, daddy-o. And we're protected from the elements."

Calamity studied the material specifications. _It's not too bad. It's marginal against common isotopes of bismuth and antimony, and any gallium isotope would penetrate from the front at a hundred metres. But most of the elements, yes_.

"My Uncle Marvin uses these. He needs them with the real horror-show things he finds out on the Survey." Marcia waved an ultra-black vaguely skywards. "He's still not found any life outside our solar system."

Calamity blinked. _But… we've tuned into the radio signals and chat shows of a dozen civilisations! There must be life out there. I've heard a game-show broadcast clear from the galactic core!_

The Martian's eyes screwed up slightly in distaste. "Oh, there's civilisations, daddy-o. Three systems of Space vampires, one of Star ghouls, and half the Eastern Spiral Arm's full of liches and wights. He's found six planets full of zombies too, but they don't send radio signals, just shamble about. No life out there – but Space is up to here in uncool Undead." She raised her hand above her head. "How those Ecosystems work with nothing alive to eat… Uncle still gets het up about that idea."

_Thinking of things you don't want to meet – there's the Swarm._ Calamity's ears went down.

"And there's Elmyra and George. They're all heading to her backyard boneyard. Creeps-ville!" Marcia made a quick calculation. "What's the chances of us all turning up at the same place at the same time?"

_With the laws of probability – not much_. Calamity shrugged. _But with the laws of Narrative Progression – pretty inevitable. Let's get closer and see the fur fly._

* * *

Behind Elmyra's house was an often-extended pet cemetery of prodigious size. It was not that she had ever intended to be cruel to animals, quite the reverse – but as her old self had often said _"I'm going to squeeze and cuddle you to itty bits_!" – and in many cases she literally had.

Elmyra walked by George's side, hand in paw. She felt her heart pounding as she looked up at the big buck; there were certainly things he was lacking, like a neck and a measurable IQ – but he made up for it in many delightful ways.

"Ahh… what's this one?" George stopped at a headstone with a carved set of sadly drooping rabbit ears.

Elmyra read the name and date, and cast her mind back. "Oh no. I remember her. Pretty Mopsy! She was one of my first real live pets. Before I'd only had plush ones. I'd helped Mommy clean them up when they got dirty. She always boil-washed them. So, well, I…" she broke off, scuffing her running shoes in the dirt in shame. "Poor Mopsy."

George was about to reply when his ears went right up – rabbit danger reflexes were hard-wired and needed no intelligence to process. "We got company."

Six hunting-suited Elmyras stepped out from behind trees and tombstones, nets in paw.

"Elmyra! Where have you been?" The blonde-haired Elmyra demanded "Didn't you get our letter?"

"Look! She's caught a bunny!" The Chinese Elmyra pointed dramatically. "He's not – secured – let's all help!"

Elmyra looked at the six oncoming figures and did something she had never managed to do before that Summer – execute a spin-change. She came out of it as the grey leather clad Rymela, International Toon of Mystery, and stood proudly at George's side, her hand squeezing his paw. "This bunny's not for caging," she declared. "I'm Rymela not Elmyra now, and this is George. He's my boyfriend."

Six advancing figures halted, frozen in mid-step. There was half a minute's silence broken only by the rasping sound of the Elmyras' group consciousness grinding gears.

"You can't have a bunny as a boyfriend!" The African Elmyra burst out.

"Why not? Anyway – too late. He is." Rymela faced them all down. There was another grinding special-effect sound.

"Because… you're a human Toon. And he's not. So there." The brown-haired Elmyra stepped back, with the air of one who had solved a particularly tricky logic challenge.

Rymela smiled. "That's peachy-keen. Our children won't be human Toons. I won't be prejudiced against them either."

The scarlet-haired Elmyra blinked. "Bunnies and humans. That… won't work."

"It works just fine. Believe me, I know." Rymela winked. "Though we won't be married and start having bunny babies till after I graduate and make piles of money for carrot baby-food."

Six Elmyras stared at her, goggle-eyed in a synchronised formation Wild Take that would have scored decent marks at Acme Looniversity.

Rymela giggled. "I'm not keeping bunnies in cages any more. George, show them how you hug me."

The buck obligingly squeezed Rymela in a loving embrace that would have dented a solid cast iron ingot. Rymela squeezed back, looking up at him with a smouldering gaze that curled his whiskers.

There was a sextet of synchronised thumps as the Elmyra swarm collectively fainted and fell flat on their backs. Rymela and George looked around, impressed.

"That's them told." Rymela declared. "Come on, George – let's celebrate. Properly." She kissed his nose, and the pair departed hand in paw in the direction of her house.

For a few minutes all was peaceful. Then the Elmyra swarm stirred and sat up, blinking. They looked at each other for a minute.

"That's a really bad thing she's doing," the Indian Elmyra said. "We have to stop her for her own good."

"She won't listen to us, though" the blonde Elmyra noted. "Who can we get to help?"

The Chinese Elmyra pulled out a palmtop computer, and regretfully paged away from the sites showing the world's cutest kittens. "We can ask if other people think it's a bad thing. Then they'll help us." She tapped in '_human toons and furry toons marrying are bad. Help_' and sent it on its way to the Net like a castaway throwing a message in a bottle.

"There. That's done it." The other five Elmyras agreed. "I expect tomorrow it'll all be all right again."

* * *

Not twenty metres away, concealed by Martian technology, Calamity and Marcia had witnessed the whole thing. More than that; with the aid of Calamity's pocket quantum supercomputer (ecologically powered by a strip of scrap zinc, an old cent and a lemon) he had not only intercepted the Elmyras' message but tracked who was replying to it. His ears fell.

"What's the script?" Marcia looked over his shoulder, and read the replies. "Sounds like Rymela's got the kind of 'help' coming she don't need."

_Yes, The Committee of Responsible Cartoons. Not the Government – but they swing a pretty big mallet in the film industry._ Calamity frowned. _If Rymela was already graduated and gone from Acme Loo – if she was a pro Bounty Hunter already, they couldn't touch her. As it is –_ "

"And if a regular mallet or anvil of ours would help Rymela then we'd swing it for her, hep-cat," Marcia nodded. "But Earth media – that's way specialist."

Suddenly a thousand-watt LED manifested over Calamity's head. _Yes! A specialist. We have one of our own. Mary Melody! And if the Elmyras complain about a human Toon marrying another species… Mary's got a personal interest. Very personal_. He switched his computer away from monitoring to sending T-mails. _This should be right in her line_.

* * *

As it happened, Mary and Jaggi reached Elmyra's house and passed her the warning not ten minutes before a less welcome arrival. The doorbell rang and Elmyra opened it to see a stout, middle-aged human toon woman in an expensive, severe-looking business dress. Had Plucky been there he would have recognised her from her other staffing role on the Adults Against Funny Cartoons Committee, where she now held the rank of Virtual Commissar.

"I am Eleanor Vandensnaffel, Chairperson of the Committee of Responsible Cartoons," that worthy announced, the sunlight glittering harshly on her diamante spectacles. "I have been informed that you, young lady, are making a terrible mistake."

Elmyra put into practice one of the techniques Mister K had taught her when confronting dangerous escaped prisoners; she imagined her adversary as already subdued and ready to be collected like an overstuffed mailbag. Once you had the final result fixed in mind, ways and means of getting there would occur. "I'm Rymela Duff," she said. "This is my house, and this is my buck." She nodded to the hulking rabbit who stood supportively at her back. "I invited him in. I didn't invite you."

The Chairperson sniffed. "Young lady. You have a duty to your family and your future. And that does not involve making a warren out of yourself. It is not illegal, but what you are doing is morally and socially unacceptable."

Elmyra giggled. "I… accept it a lot, from George. More than that – it's generally my idea."

"Shameless! A Responsible Cartoon industry cannot allow such things." The Chairperson stepped back as if she had been about to step in something unpleasant.

Elmyra raised her snub nose defiantly. "If I want to be an honorary bunny-girl, then that's what I'm going to be. And you can't stop me."

The Chairperson cast her a nasty smile. "No? I'll tell you what I can stop. You still need another year to graduate from Acme Looniversity, I believe. Unless you learn to eat grass, you'll need that Degree of Lunacy. If you want to earn enough to eat. We can control the Looniversity if we have to. And we're not having you and that rodent as film icons."

"Hey! What about me and Jaggi?" Mary Melody objected from the hallway behind Rymela. "We're a mixed couple too."

The Chairperson cast her a pitying smile. "Don't you worry your head about that, "_honey chile"._ With your pedigree, I greatly doubt anyone will ever care, or even notice."

Mary's dark eyes went wide; for about a frame there was a flash of outrage radiating from her like an explosive shockwave. She took a deep breath and spoke, in an accent very unlike her normal one. "Ah thanks yo' kindly, Ma'm, ah sho' do." From somewhere ill-defined there rang out a hard metallic "shinnggg!" sound effect that the Looniversity graduates recognised from their Anime classes as a samurai sword being quietly drawn.

The Chairperson ignored her, focussing on Elmyra and George. "We are not having you graduating to become a poster-girl for your disgusting tastes. You'd best get used to the idea." With that she was off, leaving Elmyra thumbing her nose at her broad retreating back.

Mary Melody stared after her. She turned to Jaggi, with a fixed smile on her face. "Just a second. I want to be very sure of something." She pulled out her phone, checked Shirley's status was not set to "busy", and dialled. "Hello, Shirley! I have a question. It's a karma thing." For a few minutes she spoke quietly, while Jaggi politely swivelled his ears the other direction. At last she closed the call and put the phone back. "Jaggi? I know two wrongs don't make a right. Shirley filled me in on exactly how many do. Now we can go ahead."

"I'd better contact the Guinness Book of Records," Jaggi mused, his black-tufted tail swishing. "They might be interested in what's about to happen." The zebra's keen senses could still hear the echoes of that metallic sound ringing in the air; from his Action Adventure film experience he knew that a samurai never returned his sword to the scabbard unused.

"Umm, why?" Elmyra asked, her head cocked to one side inquisitively.

"Because the Chairperson just mortally insulted a very keen, energetic part of the Media," Jaggi offered. "Perhaps this won't end very, very unhappily for her. And that would definitely be a world first."

End Chapter 6


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

(Author's note: I have read accounts of the Tex Avery heyday of WW2 cartoons, suggesting the scene Professor Bugs describes, actually was made and animated. The artists sometimes included one sacrificial scene so extreme that the censors would sieze and cut it on sight, and having done their job they'd let the rest of the film through more or less untouched.)

Acme Looniversity students, like most of their kind, generally did their best all Summer to forget about the upcoming term. All too soon there would be that fateful Monday morning when alarm clocks had to be set early and everyone knuckle down to hard work again. Being called in to see the Principle the week before the classes were due to begin was generally bad news for someone.

Professor Bugs did not seem too happy to be pulled away from his final days relaxing on the beach and yacht with his wife Honey Bunny. He was even less happy to have Elmyra in his office first thing in the morning and at the news he had to give her.

"Eeeh, youse a sweet kid, but youse in a whole pile o' trouble with a passle o' pretty powerful, pernicious palookas." He stopped pacing, and looked at the four in the office – Rymela, George, Mary and Jaggi. He shook his head. "If only you'd 'a graduated alongside of your class, Elmyra, dis wouldn't be happening. Dis kinda thing got dis grey hare grey hair."

Mary and Jaggi had come along as moral support, and because Elmyra and George between them were about as sharp as wet mud. "Professor Bugs. I've checked the laws and there's absolutely nothing wrong. Elmyra's of age, and her family all like George." The prospect of anyone eventually taking the Terror of Acme Acres out from under their roof naturally thrilled the rest of the Duff family.

"Dere's laws and dere's laws," Bugs said cryptically. "I gotta tell youse a story that we don't cover in class. So I'd be real happy if you keep it outa class, Elmyra?" At Elmyra's nod, Bugs pulled out an old photograph album. "End of World War Two, it was a real jumpin' time for Toons. Real wild. There's all kinda things got inna flicks we'd never get away wit' now. You've met Red Hot Riding Hood, seen that cabaret film she made wit' da wolf?"

Elmyra and Mary nodded. Miss Ridinghood (her family name outside the studio was actually Rhydenhode) gave girls-only talks to the senior two years, that covered a lot of practical Toon biology not in the generic textbooks.

"I think it'd go down well today, though," Mary said thoughtfully. "Her grandmother was the one who was keen on the wolf at first sight and spent the rest of the film chasing him. A woman who turned the tables on him, that's a very modern thing. And she's an older toon who won't be stereotyped – that'd be popular too."

"Well, yeah, dat's the film made it to da screens," Bugs sat back in his executive chair. He was silent for a few seconds. "Wait here." With that he vanished to an inner room. There was the sound of combination tumblers clicking and a large metal door creaking open. Eventually Bugs returned, bearing a faded folder. He passed it to the two couples without comment.

"Oh my. Grandma really did… catch her wolf, didn't she? And she got caught, too." Mary's eyes went wide as she looked through the stills, each one bearing an official production number. "That's not the finale that I saw. The original – is this Grandma and the wolf years later watching Red singing – and they've got cubs?" Evidently Melicent McLoon was far from an extreme case when it came to older Toons carrying on their families.

"Red has umm… wolf brothers?" Rymela scratched her head.

"Not brothers, they're her young half-uncles." Jaggi corrected, as he closely examined the stills. "This is labelled as original studio footage – I take it this is an ending was made but never released?"

"Ya gots dat in one," Bugs nodded. "And for why? Da books officially said it was the Hays Code. But dere's nothing about dis in the letter of the Hays Code. Believe me, I know dat piece o' paper backwards - we useta spend our days ducking and divin' around dem rules."

"The Committee of Responsible Cartoons?" Mary hazarded a guess.

"And another one got it in one!" Bugs applauded. "Da foist time anybody heard o' them, ta be exact. After the War was over, the lid went back on, and dey's the ones sat on it. Dey's a big name backstage in the film business, but you ain't gonna read nuthin' about it in the papers."

"And can they really block Elmyra from graduating?" Jaggi asked.

Bugs looked uncomfortable. "Dey can try." He waved an arm around at the view of the Looniversity through the big picture windows of the Principal's office. "The studios pay for dis place. You're gonna be the new stars making their headlines and their dough after you graduate, see? But if the Committee twists the Studio's arm behind their back, we all gots trouble." He twitched an ear. "If'n dis was just you and me, I'd be out puttin' a hotfoot under dose blue-noses right alongside of youse. Now, I gotta whole Looniversity I gotta think about. But I can give you the ammo, in a manner o' speakin'." With that he briefly stepped in the other room again and came back with a bundle of folders. "A bunch of us on the Staff had run-ins wit' dem palookas over the years – Professor Le Pew in particular. Here's the facts. What dey done, what dey tried ta pull on us."

Mary Melody flicked through the top folder and her eyes lit up in glee the way they had on many childhood Christmas mornings unwrapping presents. "Oh, yes. Thank you, Professor Bugs. If we can't come up with something now, we surely wasted our time at Looniversity." She had never scored top marks in the vengeance based comedy Babs and Buster majored in, but she had picked up a few pointers over the years.

"Mmm." Jaggi looked over her shoulder. "We have more than ammunition. We just got handed the enemy's training manual with all their game plans. I think that'll do."

Professor Bugs saw them to the door, and waved. "You be good, kids." A mischievous gleam came to his eye as the trickster supreme sent them on their way. "Don't ya go doing nuthin' I wouldn't do!"

* * *

Margot Mallard unzipped the door of the tent-like liferaft shelter, and looked out at another morning in the swamp. It had been clear the night before, and there was an unmistakeable chill in the air. She breathed out, noting she could just about see her breath. Autumn was definitely on the way.

Yawning, she washed in the lake, ran a comb through her head-feathers, and relaxed. It was a strange feeling for her. At Perfecto, a Toon who let their guard slip for a minute sorely regretted it – and any minute not spent on defence was planning the next offensive stage in clawing ahead of the competition.

"The accommodation around here might not be five-star, but it has its compensations," she murmured to herself. "Time to see what the neighbours are doing." With that she gave her feathers a final pat and walked round the corner of the reed-beds.

"Plucky?" She blinked. She had seen the mallard in many moods, but never with tears streaming down his beak. "What's wrong?"

Plucky blinked, and wiped his beak clean. "Fifi phoned me first thing. Shirley was right here in Acme Acres all last night – and she didn't even phone!"

Margot sat down just outside the nest. "How long is it since you saw her?"

"It's been seven weeks. Seven weeks of this. And she told Fifi last night she was staying in the Toon army. She didn't ask me. She didn't even tell me." His beak drooped. "I don't think she's coming back."

_Well, I told you that_. A dozen profitable lines of exploiting the situation flashed through Margot's mind – she looked at them in detail, and dismissed them all. Somehow she did not feel like it any more. "Poor Plucky. What are you going to do?"

Plucky winced. "These eggs are going to be hatching soon. It's the wrong time of year for it! Waterfowl are meant to hatch in Spring. If I stay here in the wild I'm going to freeze – and then they will."

"Mmm. Ironic, Shirley's the one who always makes such a fuss about natural harmonies. You're going to take them home?" Margot asked.

Plucky looked around the nest. "I can't stay out in the open!" Most years saw the first week or so of term at Acme Looniversity enjoying a golden Indian summer, specifically to annoy students now knuckling in to hard work in the classrooms – but after that, Acme Acres rapidly got cold and wet.

Margot considered the matter. "If you don't want to abandon that nest – and it has some fierce protections on it that'd be hard to match elsewhere – there's another way. I can bring your home to you."

* * *

That lunchtime saw another two arrivals at the reed-swamp; Fifi and Rhubella walking paw in paw as they carefully scanned the surroundings for the Elmyra swarm.

Fifi shivered. "Eh, eet eez ze scary idea – we 'ave reformed our Elmyra, tres bon… now six of ze originals zey turn up togethair!"

"Worse than the Acme Acres buses," Rhubella agreed. "They won't be here for long, though."

"Neither will we. Ruby… we are going on ze travels again when ze weather turns, non?" Fifi looked up at the clear skies. A high flying V formation of geese was heading South in the finest dramatic film tradition.

"That'll be the best time. We can see the world together for a few months. That's one good thing about my going the stork route – up till the day our little bundle arrives, I can still be running hurdle races – if I want to." Rhubella smiled. "I'm getting more in the mood for nest building, with all this egg-sitting."

Fifi's tail coiled around her, though her eyes kept scanning the horizon for threats. "And eet eez ze good deed – to 'elp out poor Plucky. Mon dieu! I could nevair believe Shirley she would be so cruel. Not to even telephone."

"Shirley did say before she joined up, she was worried about how it'd affect her aura." Rhubella paused. "Maybe it's something like passive smoking. She's going into all sorts of... situations, other psychics around her are probably enjoying blasting away left and right and she can't help but pick some of that up. It's bound to change her."

Fifi gave her a sad smile. "And ze things she is put against… she cannot protest, someone 'as to fight zem and she 'as ze qualifications. Shirley she loses ze karma eef she quits 'er eggs or 'er job – and she cannot 'ave both."

Just then Rhubella stopped. "That's changed." She pointed ahead to the position of Plucky's nest. Where before there had been just a circular open nest, now there was a square structure made from large panels of woven reeds obviously re-used from another building.

She turned her head at a familiar hail. "Margot?"

Margot Mallard was walking up the beach towards them slowly towing an orange life-raft laden with the wall units of Plucky's old house, half a dozen piled up on her impromptu cargo boat. She pulled it up to the beach panting hard, and briefly ducked her head underwater. Steam rose off it as she grinned at the new arrivals. "It's all aerobics. And to think, I used to pay good money in a gym to work out."

Rhubella looked hard at the mallard girl. "So, what's the idea?"

Margot shrugged. "Even if Shirley's not coming back, Plucky's still going to be looking after the nest. There's going to be hatchlings, soon enough – and imagine that in the November rains. He won't leave this nest to go to his house – so the house comes to him."

"Very good of you." Rhubella's eyes narrowed slightly. "I know you, Margot. Since when did you ever do anyone a favour?"

Margot pulled the liferaft up on the beach, and sat down to rest on an exposed corner of the inflated plastic. "Never, back when I was clawing my way up the ranks in Perfecto. But now…" she rested her beak on her feather-fist, a strange expression on her face. "So maybe you've been giving me ideas. I just realised that if I spent the rest of the year scrabbling for money… it really won't make much difference. I've got the Corona project about to yield, anyway."

"You're really… helping Plucky? Without getting anything out of it?" Rhubella's tail twitched as she studied her comrade. Margot seemed to be thriving in her open-air life; her feathers were shining with a gloss that no boutique had ever given them, and even her figure seemed to be filling out.

"Oh, I'm enjoying myself. In a rather strange new way – strange for me, anyway. It's rather pleasant, being full of the milk of human, I mean Toony, kindness. In more ways than one." Margot relaxed, closing her eyes. "You told the Perfecto staff you were marrying Fifi for tax reasons – and they believed that. If you don't believe me you can look for my secret plan if you like – but you won't find one."

"Hmm. This from the girl who's into things so strange they never made internet alt. binaries newsgroups for them?" Rhubella suddenly blinked as a thought hit her. It actually made a weird kind of sense. "It really is a new thing for you. It was for me."

"This from the Perfecto graduate who likes sitting in a nest!" Margot snickered. "And the only feathers you've got are what the stork gave you."

Rhubella's tail swished. "Well, while we're here – we can help too. Let's get a roof over Plucky's head."

Another two hours saw the reed house rebuilt, though lacking in amenities such as mains power and water. As Fifi joked, at least there was going to be cold and cold running water whenever it rained.

"Le sigh," Fifi sat in the nest, her gorgeous expanse of purple tail covering the eggs like a duvet. From her Toon pocket she pulled out knitting needles and woollen yarn. "I am, 'ow you say, 'good to go' for ze hour or three."

Rhubella kissed her broad nose. "I'll be back in time to change shifts. Plucky could use a real break." She glanced over to the corner where the drake was sadly piling up his currently useless collection of electrical goods. "I've got things to do, people to meet." She cast her wife a long, smouldering look. "If all goes well – you'll be meeting them yourself."

* * *

After moving the last salvageable piece of Plucky's old house to its new location, Margot towed the life-raft back to its usual mooring. She set up the tent-like shelter, pulled out the removable air mattress to a sunny spot on the beach alongside it and relaxed.

"Margot?" She turned to see Plucky, the green mallard looking at her twisting his feather-fingers in embarrassment. "I wanted to say thanks."

She smiled. "That's all right. It beats watching the clouds go by." She patted the air mattress next to her. "After your… bad news today, you could use a break."

Plucky's eyes were downcast as he sat alongside her. "All I ever wanted was Shirley. I'd do anything for her. Break into Hollywood. Start at the bottom, bit parts if I had to. Stunt duck on the Happy Tree Friends show, even! But none of that – impresses her. I could win Oscars as Hudson Duck and she'd complain about the '_way mondo macho'_ plotlines."

"She's more into mystic explorations than fame and glamour," Margot mused. "Well, she's got that now. She's working her own way up. From what Rhubella tells me, she's clearing out evil spirits like a Prohibition-era cop raiding a bootlegger's warehouse." An idea came to her. "It's a shame you aren't getting your chances. My T-pad works as a film camera. Why not film a few test scenes?"

Plucky blinked. "We've no script. No scenery. No costumes."

Margot snickered. "And you're the Looniversity graduate! Studios have all that. What they need is talent. Let's show them you're it."

Two hours later, a dozen two minute screen-tests of Plucky as a tortured soul were neatly edited and T-mailed out to the casting departments of a dozen minor studios. As Margot mused, Plucky was having no difficulty staying in character – to get any more tortured he would have needed a full medieval dungeon and professionally qualified, union-registered operatives. In California, demand for such always far exceeded supply.

"And that's a wrap." She put away her T-pad, glad that she had ordered solar recharging panels on the lifeboat. "Fifi and Rhubella are nest-sitting till sunset. What do you say to a swim?"

Plucky nodded, bracing himself as he tried to put Shirley out of his mind. "You were in the Perfecto formation swimming team. I used to watch you."

"Undefeated champions. Five years of it," Margot drew herself up proudly. Suddenly she chuckled. "We had a joke about your Loosers – I mean, Looniversity formation team. '_At Acme we stick together – if one of the team drowns, we all do._' Some of us believed it, too."

The first smile for days appeared on Plucky's beak. "I can still beat you to the bridge and back."

Margot turned, looking back over her shoulder and tossing her luxuriant mane of purple head-feathers. She cast him a mischievous smile. "Bring it on, Acme."

* * *

An hour later, the two mallards were relaxing on a sandbank in the late afternoon sun. Plucky had won two half-mile heats and Margot two – the "tie-breaker" had been too close to call, and neither had wanted to make it 'best out of seven'.

"Yes. Definitely." Margot closed her eyes, feeling her muscles glowing after the hard exercise. She recalled a day the year before when Danforth Drake had bet against her in a swimming contest against a cormorant Sports Scholar girl in the Perfecto Cup. She recalled the forfeit she had demanded from Danforth, in place of easily-forgotten cash. _I made him work harder that night than I did on fifty lengths of the pool_, she inwardly smiled as she recalled the details. There was a certain honesty about Perfecto from one point of view – nobody ever tried to reform anyone else the way she had heard Shirley had tried to reform Plucky. Finding a rival's hidden weaknesses was far too much fun, and profitable as well. The last thing they wanted was to remove them.

She turned to face Plucky, and opened her eyes. The drake had fallen fast asleep, the sudden exercise after weeks of nest-sitting having knocked him as flat as any comedy mallet. For a few seconds she briefly 'unconcealed', imagining Shirley walking round the corner that instant. _That would be interesting_. Margot reached down, stroking her oil glands near her tail-feathers and preening her damp feathers with her natural waterproofing.

_Just a little something for him to remember me by_. She very delicately touched Plucky's bill with a finger-feather, leaving a dab of her musky oils just around his nostrils. Plucky stirred, still fast asleep, but in a few seconds a smile came to his bill. Like her, he carried mammal chromoplasm somewhere in his ancestry, though in his case there was no outward sign of it. Their chemistries must be extremely similar, she reflected.

Margot 'concealed', stood up and quietly headed back towards her liferaft as the sun dipped towards the horizon. "Just because I'd like to win fairly for a change," she told herself "there's no reason to throw _all _my advantages away. Fair's fair, but it's not stupid."

Not two miles away, there was someone who was trying very hard not to think of Plucky. Shirley McLoon was at her mother's house still, with some less welcome company. Colonel Fenix could interview extremely fast using his psychic powers, and apart from Angelina there were now two more Addams Academy toons on her team. She had been fending off mental probes from them all morning. In her mind she held up shield-like the image of the GRAVUS METALLICVS, and especially the compound angle of its glacis plate, a rune-hardened six inch thickness of high dourness steel.

"This is mondo bogus." As another intrusive probe bounced off her mental armour she looked on in distaste at the raven and the Chupacabra responsible, who were being shown around the filming compound by Angelina Angelique. "And I thought she was like un-harmonious enough. They're worse! It's like totally bad karma trying to look into toons' minds like they're trying to."

Clarke Gander consulted his notes. "But they have talents. Tlalocopa should be useful if we run into any ancient Mexican spirits."

"Fer sure." Shirley's bill wrinkled. "She's a fanatical born-again Aztec from Poxopeletec. That flint dagger's not a museum piece either. It's totally practical, for what she wants. Historical re-enactments aren't always so cool." The Chupacabra was greatly respected at Addams Academy, having won the vote for '_girl most likely to be found in Priestess regalia laughing manically on top of a sacrificial pyramid_.'

"And we even have a musician." Clarke nodded to the raven. "Calgari there. He's quite famous. His Telecaster guitar is a spellcaster."

"Pe-ew. He told me how he got it that way." Shirley shook her head in disbelief. "Another 'great old tradition' the Deep South can totally do without. He waited at a deserted crossroads at midnight. A toon turned up to meet him who was black like a hole in the film – more than Marcia Martian, even – and tuned his air guitar for him. Those are going to be mondo expensive lessons when the bill's due."

"In the meantime, we can put him to good use. We need the help." The goose looked at the next page in his notes. "Colonel Fenix found another Talent already serving with a local Army unit. Corporal Barnes, he's quite powerful. Even though nobody knew till yesterday. Not even him."

"How do you have like, abnatural powers, and not know?" Shirley blinked. "Isn't it a part of you, or some junk?"

Clarke hesitated. Just then they spotted Colonel Fenix arriving with a newcomer, a border collie dressed in a spotless regular Army uniform rather than the conceptual camouflage Unit Four Plus Two favoured. "He's a sceptic. As to paranormal powers, he disbelieves in that kind of thing."

Shirley sniffed. "How does that make him a Talent?"

The collie turned to look her direction. Just before their eyes made contact, Shirley's glowing aura moaned and slumped to the ground in a dead faint, merging with her physical body like a wounded animal crawling into its lair before passing out completely. To her horror, Shirley suddenly re-experienced that terrible isolation from the spirit world she had endured twice before.

Clarke Gander gave an embarrassed grin. "They say faith can move mountains. With his level of disbelief, he can walk right through those mountains and for him they won't even be there."

"Gah. If he doesn't believe it – it doesn't happen? I-Ching sticks just turn into kindling when he's around, and Ouija Boards are drinks coasters?" Shirley's pale feathers turned paler yet. "He's like the psychic version of Dip!"

"Except that things recover when he's gone. He could be very useful – even if the rest of us aren't, while he's around." Clarke suddenly stiffened as a psychic call came through. Evidently their new comrade was not scoffing at telepathy that minute. "It's your mother – she's found something!"

Down in the second sub-basement of the McLoon family home, there was a mixture of high-tech and arcane-tech that would have both fascinated Calamity Coyote and given him a severe headache. There was a large computer screen displaying maps, across which were icons showing the paired mirrors now scattered across the country.

"Ah. Welcome to my lair." Melicent McLoon was looking at the supercooled crystal ball; a perfect sphere made of metallic hydrogen. "It's back. Any second now." She waved at the screens. "A hundred of the outermost of these flashed - it's focussing in now towards a centre – somewhere near Pittsburgh." As they watched, the computers drew a "join the dots" across the map, a dozen lines almost crossing in a suburb in New Jersey.

"Sergeant Clarke – ready with the transport!" Colonel Fenix was suddenly all business. "I left Barnes outside. Everyone else – power up!"

Shirley's aura re-emerged, rubbing a sore head but highly annoyed and ready to blast someone. Shirley looked around; of the new arrivals, Calgari the guitarist had summoned his air guitar and was strumming deep, sinister virtual chords to the backing of a portable drum and bassoon box in his backpack. Angelina Angelique's left feather-hand popped its black claws out, unnaturally sharp and eager to rip ectoplasm.

"I have it. It's materialised. There!" Melicent McLoon looked up from her scrying and jabbed a finger-feather at the map which was zooned into an aerial view of one unremarkable street. "That house with the grey roof, second storey."

"Summoning…" Clarke Gander worked out the probability of a big enough portable hole to fit everyone appearing by chance – he visualised the huge number and the hole appeared. Like parachutists leaping out of the back of an aircraft, Unit Four Plus Two jumped.

One second later and several time zones away, they were piling into a small bedroom, bouncing off each other – the crystal ball had not shown quite how small the target area was. There was a toon there – a toon raccoon, flat on his back. His chromoplasm was desperately faded; Shirley could already see the carpet through him. There was no sign of anything else, though there was a spiritual smog filling the room far worse than anything at Addams Academy.

"We're too late. That vampire works fast." Colonel Fenix looked around. "McLoon. You're the nearest thing to a Healer we've got. Anything you can do?"

"Like, I don't know. It looks like he's about to pass through to the next plane of being, fer sure." Shirley shook her head, bending over the fading form. "He's in a terrible state."

"New Jersey." Angelina muttered, a small smile on her bill as she swished her feather-claws through the air in disappointment.

As they watched, despite Shirley's best efforts the raccoon faded away, the last vestige of his chromoplasm evaporating. Shirley bowed. "He's totally gone." It was the first time in this incarnation she had seen a toon leave the mortal world, but if she stayed with Unit Four Plus Two she was grimly certain it would not be the last.

"We were too slow. But we couldn't have got here any quicker. There has to be a way of slowing that thing down." Colonel Fenix shook his head. "Any sign of what brought it here? Look for clues."

Half an hour later, the search came up blank. "Like, there's no mondo Forbidden Books, or ACME Home teleporter gone hideously wrong – none of the usual ways to open the walls of existence," Shirley reported. "It jumped out of nowhere, fed and jumped back."

"There had to be some kind of focus to summon it." It was Calgari who spoke, his voice an unnaturally melodious one that Shirley could tell came from no ordinary singing lessons. "Something that left no trace. Something he said, or sang, or thought."

"Hmm. That's going to be hard to pin down." Colonel Fenix said. "It looks like the target had a healthy body, at least."

Shirley's beak wrinkled at the sight of an empty crate of confectionary. "Totally calorie-free chocolate. Like, zero nutrition. Probably made from all sorts of unnatural junk."

As Sergeant Gander summoned the portable hole to take them back to Acme Acres, Shirley picked up one of the empty wrappers. A strange feeling ran through her aura. "Luxovice Lightweight bars by Resorblus Inc. Resorblus." She pondered, folding the wrapper and storing it in her jacket pocket. "It's a long time ago, but… one of my previous incarnations knew something with a name like that."

* * *

Back in Acme Acres as the sun set, Fifi and Rhubella finished their shifts at nest-sitting and returned to their borrowed burrow. Rhubella took a last look around at the lengthening shadows and closed the door. "Fifi. It's six months to the day since we met. I was planning a celebration – and we'll have that. Something special. Something I can't buy you with all my money." She smiled shyly and took her skunkette bride's paws in hers. "Do you still want me to find you a 'skunk-hunk' someday?"

Fifi nodded. "Oh, oui, Ruby. I 'ave been thinking about eet." Her tail twitched in an unnoticed reflex.

Rhubella took a deep breath. "What if I said 'someday' is tonight? Right now?"

Fifi's eyes went wide. She closed them for a few seconds, and nodded again. "Oui." Her tail was already beginning to fume.

Rhubella kissed her nose. "You said you were worried you couldn't look him in the eyes without thinking about our wedding oath, 'forsaking all others'? I've thought about this too. It's a bit extreme, but… you're Toonier than me. Extreme, is what it takes." From her pants pocket she pulled out a black silk blindfold and gently secured it around Fifi's eyes. "And now – we've got company."

* * *

When Babs' family had refurnished the extension for Fifi that Autumn, they had saved time by using some components that had been lying about the place. Babs and Buster's new burrow had used the armoured door of the ACME surplus missile silo, but it had left the tunnels and silo exhaust ducts unused – and the exhaust ducts had been plumbed into Fifi's part of the burrow as a safety device for the explosive skunkette (exactly how one stored and moved a tunnel was 'a bunny thing' and difficult to describe to other species).

Sometime towards midnight, the nocturnal inhabitants of Acme Forest were alarmed when the night was split with a thunderous roar. The exhaust vents' doors popped open and twin plumes of skunk fumes blasted out into the darkness. That night, it happened many times.

As the stars began to fade, a solitary figure emerged from the main flower-ringed Bunny family burrow entrance. Bonny Clarice Bunny looked around cautiously, and walked fifty paces out into the quiet woods. She carried her violin; the studious rabbit practiced for an hour a day and even now she had her own room, preferred not to risk waking her siblings.

Just as she was inspecting her instrument ready to play, she noted movement. Quietly stepping into the bushes, she looked on in interest as from the new doorway Rhubella emerged with a skunk who was certainly not Fifi. Rhubella handed him what looked like a black scarf, and whispered something in his ear.

The skunk male was tall, mature and distinguished-looking. As Bonny watched, he bowed respectfully to the rat and kissed her hand, then straightened up and clicked his heels together – a difficult feat with unshod feet. With another bow he turned and walked away into the forest, his splendid expanse of black and white tail waving a fond farewell.

Bonny smiled as she recognised him. Her rabbit tail twitched; her boyfriend was a younger skunk, Henri who was back home in France till the Christmas break, but it seemed she was not the only one around who liked two-tone fur. _Handsome, successful, sophisticated. Oh, yes._ Bonny nodded approvingly. She would not be mentioning this to anyone. _It's a skunk-hunk thing. _

End Chapter Seven


	8. Chapter 8

Simon Barber: Seven brides for Seven Bunnies; a Tiny Toons Tale

Chapter Eight

The third sub-basement of her family home was not a place that Shirley McLoon had ever felt particularly comfortable with. She shivered slightly as she looked around her Mother's workshop; this was a place where the user manuals were kept chained down and locked for safety reasons. Whether that meant the safety of the reader or the rest of the planet, was a subject she had never liked to enquire too closely.

"Well, dear." Melicent McLoon sat back in one of the frequent chairs arranged round the occasional table. "We missed the energy vampire by seconds. But now we've more idea just what we're dealing with."

"I saw the picture Angelique first took." Tlalocopa, the chupacabra, put in hungrily. "It looked like it had horns. Maybe it's a goat toon! I hope it is. I like goats."

"You and your appetites," Angelina Angelique's sharp beak split in a hungry smile. "It's well fed by now, whatever it is. Imagine all that energy. Save me some when we stake it down and tap it dry."

Shirley looked on in distaste at her new comrades. Tlalocopa was hard to describe, being a semi-mythical being. Nobody knew what a chupacabra looked like, even after seeing one. This was handy in an Abnatural Forces unit; much as Toons serving in some other Particularly Special Forces units sported big black eye-covering shticks that anonymised them on photographs. She glumly acknowledged there were worse members of Addams Academy. Colonel Fenix had interviewed one bat who had the odd trait of moving his head constantly, as his eyes were as fixed in position as a statue's. That had been very strange, she had thought at the time, but never asked the reason.

"Pierced eyeballs. It's the new cool fashion," Angelina Angelique whispered in her ear-hole. "You should try it. The piercings are pile-driven straight through the brain from the back of the head."

"Totally ultimate," Tlalocopa sidled up to her. "All the coolest piercings are life-threatening. The most righteous piercings have less than a one per cent survival rate. You have to be maximum cool to wear that."

Shirley gave a squawk of outrage. "Like, get out of MY head!" She drew back in horror. Angelina had managed to slip a thought probe in while her defences were down for an instant. "Or next time it's going to be… totally inharmonious." She vengefully transmitted the image of the magpie reaching one feather-hand in through an open window like a sneak-thief, only to find herself being pulled into an ACME log-shredder, the kind Gogo Dodo had once dated. The last time anyone had heard of the surrealist bird, he had written back with a snapshot of his new fiancée, a stunningly built Japanese numerically controlled milling machine. He was unprejudiced by the common rumour that absolutely everyone had her number.

Angelina snickered. "In your dreams. Totally shredding some toon's aura isn't easy. I bet you've never even tried. It's not like malleting them in your Acme Looniversity slapstick class. You have to really want it, I am so sure! And if you ever did - that'd be the end for you both as Miss Purity and Harmony."

Shirley and her aura began to power up, blue-white energy crackling around their plain and ectoplasmic feathers respectively.

"Now then, dear." Melicent McLoon tapped on her Ouija board like a teacher calling a class to order. "We still don't have a good picture of the vampire – in fact, we're calling it a vampire only by what it does, not what it looks like."

"The first photograph we got is still the best," Colonel Fenix put in. "It may have horns – they might be something quite different. It's very blurred. Ill-defined. We need more information. If we could get a picture of it on the astral plane, we might get a better view of its true nature."

"And that'd also give us more warning time," Melicent agreed. "Shirley – you've been to the Time Needle before. There's a technique that just might work, that you and your aura are uniquely qualified for."

* * *

"This is like one of Plucky's way gross video games." An hour later, Shirley and her aura were back in Seattle on the viewing platform of the Time Needle. She looked around carefully, checking than none of the Addams Academy toons had sneaked alongside for the ride through the Portable Hole. Keeping her mental shields up every second she was around them was a tiring business.

_More like Calamity Coyote's favourite subject – QuanToon Physics_. Her aura looked down at the stack of sixty-six cheap glass vanity mirrors that Unit Four Plus Two had seized from a televangelist who had been about to publicly smash them as a strike against the sin of vanity. _Ironic – we got these from someone who was about to break them, and now we're going to break them ourselves._

"We will and, like, we won't, at the same time. That's the trick." Shirley hefted one of the mirrors, and looked up at the dimensional turbulence of the Time Needle. "Right – ready to catch? Here we go."

_Fer sure._ Her aura transitioned to the lowest level of the astral plane, and crouched like an infielder awaiting the ball. Shirley threw the first mirror up… it hit the time turbulence at just the right point, and returned as two identical mirrors – in fact the second mirror was the same one, time-shifted from a minute into the future. Putting one copy carefully aside, she threw the other of the QuanToon entangled pair high in the air – and blasted it to atoms with a psychic bolt.

_Got it!_ Just as a Viking's sword and shield burned with him on the funeral boat and joined their owner in Valhalla, the image of the destroyed mirror entered the spirit world where Shirley's aura grabbed it and flew off to position it strategically. With one of the mirror pair still available on the mortal plane to be consulted, Unit Four Plus Two had extended their detection web by several dimensions.

Shirley sighed as she looked down at the big stack of mirrors. She was going to be exhausted by the time this lot was done. "I totally hope," she muttered to herself as she looked up into the eye-watering distortions around the Time Needle, "that my friends are having a better morning than me."

* * *

Fifi Lafume awoke slowly, stretched out utterly relaxed in the bedroom she and Rhubella shared adjoining the Bunny family's warren. She smiled, wriggling luxuriously, then the memories came flooding back to her.

"Mon dieu!" Her eyes popped wide open and she sat bolt upright in bed, looking around. There was nobody to be seen for a few seconds – then Rhubella entered, dressed in her negligee and carrying a tray.

"Breakfast in bed, Mrs Lafume!" Rhubella set the tray down on the bedside table, then slid into bed next to her skunkette bride. She kissed Fifi's broad pink nose. "How are we this morning?"

Fifi blushed, looking down. Her eyes widened at the sight. "I will 'ave to be wearing ze long skirts for a few days. For Babs eet was ze same…." Her voice trailed away. "Ruby. I cannot 'elp eet, I feel I 'ave been ze... unfaithful to you."

"Nuts," Rhubella said firmly. "Who's complaining? This was my idea, remember? And I had a fine time myself, if you remember that?" She paused, her expression contemplative. "Nothing that'd… cause the stork any confusion, you could say. But I was tempted. Very tempted." She winked. "Our guest had no complaints either, believe me."

"'E 'as gone?" Fifi looked around, and noticed the bedside clock showed nine in the morning.

Rhubella looked up innocently. "It's just me and you now, Fifi. Males are like that – they come and go."

Fifi blushed deeply and hugged her close, and for a few minutes they cuddled lovingly. Then she gave a sigh. "Eet eez done, now. Aftair all ze years I waited. And now, nevair again."

Rhubella stifled a snort of laughter. "Fifi, you're kidding me. If we're going the… biological route to get you a litter, nothing's certain. It's not just one defining Plot Event then the result's hard-written in the script. You might have thrown a lucky double six on the dice last night… or you might need a few more throws. Who knows how many? And besides…" she looked searchingly into Fifi's wide eyes "remember I took you to that sushi restaurant in BosToon, on our way to France?"

Fifi nodded. "Eet was ze first time I 'ad 'eaten ze true sushi. Formidable!"

"Mmm. I know you liked that. Do you think I don't want to see you enjoying it again?" Rhubella smiled, playfully "beeping" her wife's nose. "If you really want to stop doing this with "skunk-hunks" – or you stop enjoying it – just let me know. Otherwise…" Her eyes gleamed mischievously. "Believe me, I had more than one promising name on the list." Her tail swished, and she stroked Fifi's tummy-fur lovingly. "Though working your way down that menu might get you rounder than low-fat Sushi. All the more of you to love."

"But ze skunk-babies... 'ow will I know whose zey are?" Despite herself, Fifi found her depleted musk glands had begun to fume again at the prospect.

"We already know that. Ours." Rhubella kissed her again, and that morning it was another hour before either of them got around to breakfast.

* * *

Shirley returned to Acme Acres at lunchtime, her feathers ragged with effort and her aura flickering like a cheap fluorescent tube about to burn out. She had to manage without the convenient portable hole travel for the return trip, as Clarke Gander was busy with moving the newer members of Unit Four Plus Two around the country setting up more mundane mirror traps.

"Total burnout-ville." Her levitation ran out of power a mile from her family home, and her yellow-golden webbed feet splashed down on the mud of the river bank that led to Lake Acme. For a second she paused, looking downstream towards her nest site. It had rained heavily an hour before, and she hoped Plucky was keeping the nest dry.

"Just a few weeks – then I'll take over. I'll be there when they hatch," she promised herself and her unhatched daughters. The bonding with fledglings and their parents happened in minutes; even for wild avians born blind and helpless their auras would bond that day and remain bonded forever. Then she could take some family leave to take over their education while Plucky tried for a few weeks to break into Hollywood. Hopefully after that failed he would be easier to cope with. She had recently seen no futures where she was mate to a successful movie star – although once there had been some.

Shirley resolutely shook her feathers into shape, smoothed down her green jacket and walked up the hill towards her family home. Actual walking, one foot after another through the mud, was something she did very little of; given the energy, levitation was far more harmonious.

"Well, look who it isn't." Margot Mallard suddenly appeared round the corner of the path from town, laden with a backpack obviously full of food supplies. "Meeting Santa Claus around here, that wouldn't surprise me so much – he drops by every year. But you're a rare visitor."

Shirley sniffed, turning her bill up at the ex-Perfecto girl. "Like, if it isn't Miss Bad Karma of the year. What are you doing, still hanging around Acme Acres? I thought a tropical super-villain hideaway with some super-villain millionaire boyfriend was more your scene."

"You'd have thought so," Margot concentrated on pushing one thought to the front of her consciousness, well aware of Shirley's mind reading talents. "But – my investment plans didn't go as well as they might. I'm not living in hotels and penthouse apartments these days. I step out of my front door and land in the mud."

_True_, Shirley's aura registered, much to her and Shirley's surprise_. She's actually telling the truth_.

"Like, I'm sure it couldn't have happened to a more deserving toon… you're not even a bird, you're a feathered mammal. I told you years ago, Karma would get you in the end." Shirley looked down her bill at Margot. True, the mallard seemed far less finely groomed and coiffured than she had last seen her – but there was a healthy sheen of fresh-air vitality to her that she had never seen before. Her figure was what a mammal male no doubt would call more generous than ever – though generosity was not something anyone expected from Perfecto graduates. "We all, like, make our own nests, then lie in them."

"You've been visiting Plucky and your nest?" Margot raised an eyebrow. "It's about time."

"Oh, Plucky. He's got his job to do. And I've got mine. I'll be back when the time's right." Shirley swayed as she felt her inner power gages dipping alarmingly; she badly needed to centre herself and re-attune with the infinite. _If this was one of Plucky's uncool, totally military-aggressive flight games, the instrument panel would be one mass of flashing red warning lights, fuel and batteries about flat empty,_ her aura agreed. "I've not got time for this. Like, hasta la vista."

Margot looked at the dishevelled, obviously exhausted loon, and took a guess about what she had been doing – wrongly, as it turned out. "I'm glad Plucky had some fun this morning. He's had none for a long, long time." She winked. "I'm surprised at you. Right there on the nest in front of his un-hatched sons, and everything?"

"Sons? Much you know. Those aren't his sons." Shirley found energy to snap back, as she swayed on her feet. "Margot, totally good-bye, and junk. I've got more harmonious things to do than talk with you. Like, always." With that, she flicked her tail-feathers up in contempt and headed up the hill towards her family home on the slopes of Mount Acme.

Margot stared after her for a long, long time.

* * *

Five minutes later, Gladys and Gracie walked up from the lakeside to find her sitting by the river bank, deep in thought. They carried the rubbish sacks from the past two days at Plucky's nest, as Margot spotted instantly.

She stood up, waved and forced a smile. "Gladys! Gracie! How's Plucky recovering?"

Gracie looked at her blankly. "Recovering?"

Margot blinked. "I just met Shirley coming up from that direction. She looked like she'd been having some pretty vigorous nest-sitting – or should I say mallard-sitting?"

The two plain avians looked at each other doubtfully. "Oh, no. We've been there the past two hours, taking turns on the eggs while Plucky went fishing. Shirley, she's not been there. We'd have seen her. She's not been to her nest for weeks now. Not since she got her job."

"Ah." Margot sat back heavily, her eyes wide. "That's… interesting."

Gladys looked at her, eyes wide in concern. "You quarrelled with her?"

Margot shook her head. "Not really. But it's what she said. I know she can't ever lie – her aura wouldn't let her. You know Plucky's expecting sons – or at least one son?"

Both avians nodded. "Yes, he's said. That's the way with Toon conventions – there'll be a loon girl chick and a green mallard boy chick – or visa versa," Gracie confirmed.

"Shirley just told me they're not his." Margot had not meant to blurt it out like that; at Perfecto there were entire semesters devoted to choosing the perfect place and time to drop plot-shaking revelations like a smart bomb guided precisely on target. But recently, she had been feeling very 'im-perfecto' when measured as a heartless schemer; at least some of it she knew was due to her body hormones changing as various… developments proceeded. Messing with one's natural metabolism was bound to have side-effects, she told herself.

Gladys looked at her partner. "Margot's telling the truth," she whispered. "And we know Shirley always does. But Shirley doesn't say everything, either."

Three feathered girls sat on the grassy bank, their minds whirring audibly.

"Should we tell Plucky?" Gracie voiced what was on their minds. There was a minute's silence. "If Shirley told Margot… she can't care who finds out. But – she was ten minutes' walk away from their nest and didn't tell him herself?"

Margot's bill wrinkled. "In my first-year, I was part of a plot to try and bring him over to Perfecto. It's the kind of thing we do. But I couldn't manage it. He's an honest drake, underneath it all. He ought to know."

"What would you do, at Perfecto?" Gracie asked. "We've heard it's sort of… harsh there."

Margot gave a snort of laughter. "If Plucky was a Perfecto grad and found out, he'd dump the eggs on the Loon family doorstep the minute he knew, and let his lawyers make crispy fried loon out of Shirley. You could probably get a fraud charge to stick. Loss of earnings, too. He'd assume he'd have made twice as much as Babs and Buster did from their films, all the time he was stuck on that nest." She was fairly confident that Plucky really might get a starring role given a chance; she had sent off the "screen tests" of his she had shot on her T-pad, and got some quite promising replies already.

Gracie's eyes went wide. "I've just thought. This must be why she didn't want to marry him. That'd be even worse karma if she had, knowing about the eggs."

The maroon mallard hesitated. There was something very wrong here. Shirley must know it only took one shed feather for a hospital to do a chromoplasm test that would prove the hatchlings' parentage beyond doubt. She could imagine being told about it after Shirley had already told Plucky, but before? It made no sense to her. Suddenly an idea struck her. Shirley was far from a friend of hers; the loon probably thought Margot would run and tell Plucky out of spite. She could imagine Plucky angrily disbelieving the news, and throwing her out. _Maybe Shirley suspects us. That'd be a very Perfecto move – to try and split us up with him thinking I was lying, when I'm really not. Hmm. Maybe there's more to that flaky loon than meets the eye._

"I can't tell him. It'll break his heart when he finds out but – I can't be the one to do it," Gladys said sadly. Her partner nodded in agreement.

"Shirley should be the one. Now, how to make sure she owns up? I'll have to think about that," Margot mused, drumming her feather-fingers on a log. "In the meantime – I'll go and keep Plucky company. He might need it."

Gracie nodded. "You do that! We're with you on this." She glanced down at the bag filled with empty pouches that had held biodynamic-grown humanely-harvested mung bean sprouts. "We've kept all our promises to Shirley, about the diet. But she's broken the rules now and… I know Plucky doesn't really like eating this stuff."

"Next time round, he can expect something a bit tastier. The budget we've got will cover it. Hand-picked ethically sourced seaweed is expensive." Gladys put in. "We'll bring something else on the next supply run."

"I'll leave that as a nice surprise for him." Margot's beak twisted wryly. _He's got quite enough nasty ones lined up, anyway, _was her unspoken thought.

She waved at Gladys and Gracie as they departed, stood and walked down the lake-shore, deep in thought.

* * *

When Shirley reached her home, she noticed two large military-surplus trailers parked on the nearest roadside. She nodded, now understanding how Unit Four Plus Two hid its business in plain sight. "You can buy those things for a few hundred dollars – a lot of toons do. The military would never buy back their own junk. Everyone knows that." She sent her aura probing in to look at their inhabitants – a dozen dim-looking buzzards were hunched intently over battered video game arcade consoles.

"Another idea of dear Hal's," Melicent McLoon's voice came from behind her. She was the only person who could sneak up on Shirley without her aura noticing; her energy flows were so like Shirley's own they caused no disturbance in her energy field. "It'd take the patience of a saint – and more time than we've probably got – to explain what we're really doing so they understand it. But set it up like a video game and tell them it's free to play – they'll be hard at work on it all day."

"Like, gah." Shirley's eyes widened as her aura peeked over one of the buzzard's shoulders. The "game" was a multiple camera view of twenty mirrors looking across the astral plane, with the "player" poised to spot any sinister movements and pounce with joystick and firing button pinning down its position. "That's why Colonel Fenix wanted buzzards. It's their nature. They spend days totally staring at empty deserts anyway, till something moves?"

"Yes, dear. They don't get bored watching, and they have keen sight. Hal has a talent for knowing just what to use in all the right places. He gets… most satisfactory results." Melicent winked, and ran a finger down her white-feathered body. "I can vouch for that myself."

Shirley blushed furiously. "Mother!"

Just then one of the buzzards stiffened, and the firing button twitched. Shirley and Melicent McLoon sent instant probing thoughts; one of the mirror pairs she had despatched to the astral plane that morning had seen something passing through. Of course the astral plane was far from empty, illuminated with spirit forces of all kinds – but evidently Colonel Fenix had impressed his buzzards with what he wanted them to look for. To judge from the response of the "game" interface, it was easily worth the thousand points just scored.

"That's it! It's not arrived on the mortal plane yet – but it's heading this way. Time to ring the fire alarm." Melicent sent out a mental call, and Shirley picked up the echoes as Unit Four Plus Two responded.

Two minutes later, they were in the third sub-basement looking at the mixture of arcane and electronic technology tracking the intruder.

"It's West... far West of here. That puts it out in the ocean… on a boat, or Hawaii maybe?" Clarke Gander called out, looking at a diffuse red cloud on the map, shrinking and concentrating like a dispersing smoke cloud filmed in reverse. "We've never had one overseas, not even in Canada or Mexico. Whatever's summoning it must be something only we have."

"Lucky overseas," Tlalocopa, the Mexican chupacabra put in snidely. "Then, doesn't everyone want to come to America?"

Lines appeared on the map, wavering like searchlights probing at the far edge of their range, as the scrying globes and computers tried to pin down the centre.

"It's Hawaii all right, Big Island" Hal Fenix nodded grimly. "But we've only got one mirror pair there – everything else is trying to spot it all the way from the mainland. It's not a good fix."

"But we're still going in there, fer sure? It'd be like awful karma if we just – let it feast when we could have stopped it." Shirley protested.

Hal took a deep breath. "We're going in there. Melicent, please? As soon as you can." Around him, his pack of Paranormal punishers powered up.

"I'm getting a strange reading. It was like this before… as if there's several of them. A whole flock? They're coming together - there." Melicent McLoon was peering hard into her crystal ball, in which a distorted vision of palm trees and pineapple plantations could be seen flashing past as she scanned. She jabbed her finger-feather at the image of an isolated hut in the middle of a sugar-cane plantation. "We're in luck – it's heading for somewhere within a thousand paces of there – and there's nowhere but that hut. Go!"

Clarke Gander fixed the image in his head, unrolled the big portable hole and engaged his Toon travel shtick. "Tooning in… ready, set, go!" And he dived into the special-effect hole in the film, with Shirley just behind him.

It was raining in Hawaii. A dense, warm rain mixed with low cloud cut visibility down to a few hundred yards of dripping sugar-cane, with a vague backdrop of steep forested hills just visible between waves of rain. Evidently someone had used reference material.

"There!" Shirley's aura spotted something arriving from the astral plane. It was like half a dozen smoky contrails coming together, focusing on the corrugated-iron roofed hut.

"I see it. Get in there and get ready, everyone." Colonel Fenix's voice was grim. "Not you, Ensign Mcloon – you're out of power. Stay back here and observe."

Shirley opened her beak to protest – but Colonel Fenix was her boss, and she had to admit he was perfectly right. She ducked into the minimal shelter from the rain offered by a large palm tree and watched as Unit Four Plus Two surrounded the hut, all their active talents powered up but kept silent till the trap was sprung.

_Now!_ Her aura heard the mental call. The hut was suddenly shielded in a dome of astral light as Colonel Fenix cut it off from the astral plane, trapping the interloper inside.

"Looks like they totally got it." Shirley sat back, impressed. "That shield looks mondo solid." Cut off from escape to the astral plane, the vampire would be forced into a knock-down fight with Colonel Fenix and the rest, and despite her misgivings about some of the new arrivals Shirley was in no doubt of their abilities.

_Oh? I mean – uh-oh._ Her aura pointed. Outside the polychrome edge of the force wall, something was forming. It was not as if it was leaking through any hole in the flawless shield – this was more of a teleporting effect. In a second a shadowy figure stood outside – and she realised it was looking straight at her.

_You? Here? After all this time? _A voice of rage and ancient hunger rang in her head. She stepped back, desperately throwing up what shields she could with her depleted energies – but the second before her shield could form, she felt a touch of sickening cold on her spirit like icy fingers running through her memories.

Suddenly the amulet she had taken from the secret Government warehouse flashed with cold fire, and the intruder was hurled back, a howl of pain and rage shaking the astral plane. With that, it vanished like smoke in the wind.

Shirley collapsed, pale and shaking. "It read me. It read me." She was still staring out into the rain when Colonel Fenix managed to dispel the astral shield a minute later.

The phoenix gently knelt beside Shirley, concern on his face. "Did you see it? It didn't solidify. It was like seven vague clouds that merged into one – and then it somehow stepped around my barriers and escaped."

"I don't know how it did that, Sir," Clarke Gander put in. "That shielding you cast looked spirit-proof. It should have been bounced back like light off a mirror."

"No. I totally couldn't focus on it. It didn't take solid shape. But it recognised me." Shirley pulled out her amulet and showed it to the rest of the team. "It totally didn't like this."

"Hmm. If ancient Babylonian amulets are its weak spot, we can probably put the Holy Water and garlic back on the shelves with the crucifixes." Colonel Fenix mused. "It's not a Hollywood-standard vampire. Good work, McLoon, that's our first big lead. We even saved the intended victim."

"Some poor schmuck who works at a health spa down the valley," Angelina Angelique sniffed. "He'd sneaked up here to eat dumb candy bars; seems they're banned where he works." The magpie jerked her head contemptuously towards the hut. "Why do we never get to save any grateful millionaires?"

Shirley frowned. There was something definitely there, a thought she tried to catch. But her head was spinning with fatigue and the effects of that horrific touch on her spirit, and it slipped away from her.

Colonel Fenix looked at her appraisingly. "Apologies, Ensign, I should have kept you further back, in your energy state. But I couldn't put a buzzard on the job – they'd be no use as psychic observers. We have to find out what summons this thing. This is the first time we've managed to get a victim in any condition to talk to – and we will."

Angelina Angelique grinned. "I can channel the spirit of Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor. He'd get you the information fer sure!"

"We generally don't do that to the people who are on our side," Colonel Fenix raised an eyebrow "but I'll bear in mind that you know his… phone number, so to speak."

"Way gross," Shirley recoiled in disgust. "Know any other celebrities from the Dark Side of the Farce?"

"Oh, you have no idea…" Angelina's eyes flashed mischievously. "Maybe I'll introduce you to Ilsa, a totally radical German she-wolf from the 1940's. I've channelled her a few times – when I came round and saw her idea of a party – whoo-hoo, what a mess!"

Shirley shuddered. Unit Four Plus Two certainly protected the world from some terrible things, she thought. Her aura nodded, completing the thought. _But who's going to protect the world from us?_

* * *

Back in Acme Acres, although there was a current lack of astral plane invaders, the more mundane kind was proving troublesome enough.

"Bunny! Bunny!" The scene was Acme Acres Park where all six of the Elmyra swarm were closing in on Mortimer Benson Bunny, oldest of Babs' siblings. The young buck was wearing his first Acme Looniversity jacket; he was due to start in class on Monday – assuming he ever got there. "You're going to be our pet forever, believe it!" The Indian-styled Elmyra called out.

"Whoa! This bunny's not for a play-toy! Anyway you're not my type – I've got a sweet doe already." As the Elmyra swarm made a synchronised grab for him, Mortimer spun up to full speed, engaged AfterBunner and tunnelled straight down – the displaced earth and rock shot up in a tall plume just as the swarm crashed into each other. It other scenarios it would be Ground Zero – here it could be better named Bunny Zero, there being zero bunny currently in the middle of it.

"Wahh!" Six heads collided with a noise like empty coconuts dropped on concrete – their owners bounced back and sat in a circle (more properly, a hexagon) dazed for a few seconds while mud and earth rained down on them in a messy fall-out pattern.

The blonde-wigged Elmyra pulled a face, then pulled off her wig and vainly tried to shake the mud off. "I can't believe the state of us. We're disgusting!"

* * *

_So, what else is new?_ Fifty metres away, Calamity Coyote was sitting under the Martian-technology fabric with Marcia, keeping a monitoring eye on the neighbourhood menace. His sign-board was a red-light LED version that glowed just bright enough to read without damaging night-vision.

Marcia suppressed a giggle. "On the beam and in the green, daddy-o." Her eye shape indicated a worried frown. "We've only got a few more days. Then it's round-up time; we'll have to get up to the state that's round at the ends, high in the middle."

_Yes. And Ohio's a long trip from here. Professor Coyote's almost finished with the yearly committee meeting at MiskaToonic U. Then he'll be back here to hand us our postgrad assignments, before he starts back at Acme Loo for the Autumn term_. Professor Coyote was currently the chair-toon of the world committee deciding What Man Was Not Meant To Know. From hints he had dropped his eager young students, after four and a half milliard years the world was now judged old enough in the coming year to withstand the truth about Dark Matter, Pastel Matter, and tapioca.

"I dig it. It'll be cool to jive with the big daddy dust-hound again. I'm hep with that beat." Marcia pointed to the distant Elmyra Swarm. "I'm also hep with lip-reading. The brown-haired one, she's saying something worth listening to. Wierdsville."

_Must have got knocked on the head harder than it looked,_ Calamity's sign agreed_. It doesn't last, for toons, having sense knocked into you that way_. He adjusted the gain on the microphones, and they both listened intently.

* * *

"What I mean is, that was a strange thing the bunny said," the brown-wigged Elmyra sat back, an oddly contemplative look on her features. "We're not his type."

"Of course not, silly. He's a bunny and we're humans." The scarlet-wigged one looked at her in exasperation.

"Yes. But he had to think about it first, to decide. So it's not – automatic." The brown-wigged one complained.

"You really hit your head hard," the Chinese-looking Elmyra suggested.

"Maybe. It's still ringing, yes," the brown-wigged one admitted. She paused for a few seconds. "But Elmyra wasn't knocked on the head, was she?"

"Maybe she should be," the blonde-wigged one snapped. "What she's doing is… just… icky."

"We're icky. Covered in mud anyway." The brown-wigged one pointed out. "I don't want to go around looking like a walking mud-pie all day."

The Indian Elmyra nodded. "But it's so far back to the hotel. It'll take us all afternoon to get there, wash up and get back here."

A dim one-watt bulb appeared above the brown-wigged Elmyra, noticeably fading as she recovered from the bump on the head. "We'll go and see Elmyra! That's not far. I'm sure she'll let us use her shower."

"Yay!" The other five chorused, and as one they swung into step and headed out towards the Duff household. They had dealt with the unsuitable Bunny buck already, surely. Elmyra would obviously now be pleased to see them, same as she ever had, and then they could spend the rest of the day pet-hunting together.

Calamity and Marcia watched them go. _We should phone Elmyra and tell her to watch out_, Calamity's sign read. He pulled out his T-pad and made the call. Evidently Elmyra and George were home.

"That's our chores done for the day." Marcia stood up, checked the Elmyra swarm were out of sight, and rolled up the stealth tarpaulin. "They've faded from the scene. Time to refuel. What say we go hang at Weenie-burger? They do a fine tube-steak." Unlike many Toons, Marcia had no problem with even the hastiest Fast Foods – being brought up on Martian cuisine of food substitute and thin ersatz water, she had been quite happy to eat even the Looniversity cafeteria cuisine with its margarine substitute and non-dairy cheese.

_Weenie-burger_, Calamity's sign agreed. _We might even advance science. Nobody's yet described the exotic matter state of their Happy Baby Puppy-face Meal_. It had been a favourite of their Elmyras in their original mode, which under the law of "You are what you eat" might have contributed to their unique mental state.

* * *

Ten minutes later the modern Rymela Duff, Toon of Mystery, was putting together a surprise that did not involve tripwires and cages or indeed anything from the ACME catalogue – though oddly enough, bunnies were involved.

"You stay there, George. These night-shift curtains are totally dark – they won't see you from outside." She stretched up and kissed her buck's nose, before shooing him into her bedroom and closing the door. When she had started dating George she had bought underground-effect curtains for her room before discovering how different he was from others of his kind. It was not that he was claustrophobic as such – just that he hated being underground except for brief special-effect tunnelling. Technically he was a hare rather than a rabbit, and their wild ancestors always lived above ground. "All rabbits are bunny, but not all bunnies are rabbits," she reminded herself. Just then the doorbell rang.

"Elmyra! Can we borrow your shower?" She opened the door to see six mud-covered figures. Two of them were so drenched she could hardly see their wig colours; only the small areas of visible skin and deduction showed her they were the Indian and scarlet-haired (Irish) Elmyras.

Rymela giggled. "Sure! You'd better get those dirty things off here before you go upstairs. Or you'll be dropping mud all over the carpet." She closed the door and blinds, and pulled out a roll of plastic from the hall cupboard. "Drop it all on here – I'll get it laundered later."

Six mud-caked wigs and identical Fudd-style hunting outfits were soon piled up on the plastic sheet, and six bald and almost identical Elmyras followed her upstairs.

"What have you been doing?" She shook her head in mock despair, as she led them to the bathroom. "You've taken up mud-wrestling and not invited me?"

"It wasn't our fault!" The Chinese Elmyra protested. "We were after the second bunniest rabbit we've ever seen, and he got away – straight down. The tunnel splash got us all."

"You didn't have to hunt him," Rymela shook her head, as she handed out bars of soap. "You know, you could have just invited him for a picnic. He might have said yes."

Six figures paused, brains whirring. "But we always hunt cute animals!"

"Bunnies and mice and giant ground sloths..." the (normally) brown-wigged, Argentinian Elmyra carried on dreamily. She stopped, feeling the eyes of her meme-group on her. "Okay - I've never yet caught a giant ground-sloth, but I won't believe they're extinct either. I'll keep looking."

"Why not find one who doesn't want to run away in the first place?" Rymela raised a painted-on eyebrow. "I did."

"We thought we'd fixed that. Put you right." The Australian (normally blonde-wigged) Elmyra complained. "You can't really do that. It wouldn't… work." She turned the shower on and squeezed in; fortunately builders of Toon housing assumed their inhabitants might someday include hippos and rhinos, and planned the scale of the plumbing to cope.

Rymela looked down at her hands, which were slightly muddy after bundling the others' clothes into the washing machine. "Oh, just look at that. Now I need a wash too. Make room!" With that she slung her own wig onto its stand, and joined her former meme group. Even now they were all exactly the same height, weight and shape.

The Elmyra swarm had shared showers before as a sports team, and had thought nothing of it. Rymela giggled, her idea taking shape. "It's a good thing they made these stalls big enough. They even fit me and George. And they don't even do squash and stretch like us Toons can."

"You and a rabbit. It's just not possible," the Indian Elmyra said flatly.

Rymela cast her a glance that in other times and places would be classed as a (Grin +4, Save vs. Gaze Weapon attacks at (-5)). "It's more than possible. Every day this Summer – for me it's been a certainty." She ran a soaped finger down her athletic form; bounty-hunting was hard work but it had rewarded her with surprising muscle definition for a Toon human, almost a washboard stomach. "All this exercise is almost getting me a 'six-pack'… and in a few years I want George to make us another six-pack. Of bunny babies."

"You must have been malleted too hard in class all those years," the Chinese Elmyra tapped her head pityingly. "It just couldn't possibly happen."

"Can too," Rymela replied smugly.

"No it can't." Which of the meme group said that was unimportant; they were all thinking it in sync.

"Yes it can."

"No it can't."

"Yes it can." Rymela knew from long experience that they could keep this up all day. She gave another over-powered grin, and stepped out of the shower. It was almost pitch dark in her bedroom with the blackout curtains, and as for George – his main Toon shtick was "what you don't know can't hurt you." With the range and depth of what he did not know, it was not only as a bounty-hunter that he was almost invulnerable. "I can prove it." She opened the bedroom door and stepped inside. "Then just this once – you can prove it yourselves." The door remained open.

Six sets of eyes bulged in a synchronised Wild Take at the sights they witnessed. Half an hour later, the Elmyra swarm turned to each other, and spoke in sync. "We were wrong. She can, too."

That evening, any passer-by outside the Duff household would have seen a strange sight. The back door opened – and one after another, six bald figures in identical clean but still damp green hunting outfits were ceremoniously booted out, each performing a graceful ballistic arc and single bounce straight out of the Looniversity Animation Mechanics 101 class. A mixed collection of similarly laundered damp wigs was thrown out after them.

A female voice spoke from the shadowed interior of the house, its mingling satisfaction and annoyance. "Right. Now go and find your own buck!"

* * *

As evening fell, Margot Mallard dried herself after a long solitary swim and walked round to Plucky's side of the reed bed. For a minute she observed him, before he noticed she was there. The green duck was wistfully looking through slightly damp copies of Hollywood trade press magazines, as no doubt he had every week at Acme Looniversity. _The difference_, Margot thought sourly, _was that then he had a chance of making some of the news in them_. She cheered up at one piece of news that just had come through her T-pad; a small but innovative studio up in Oregon had loved the samples she had shot of Plucky's "method acting" and wanted to see him. The future was looking up.

"Plucky!" She stood up, waving. "I've dropped round for an hour. If you're not busy?" She tried hard to keep the irony out of her voice.

"Sure!" Plucky's face lit up at the sight of her. "Gladys and Gracie were here this morning with the chow. I can offer you an organic bean-sprout and wild rice burrito. It's only ten per cent nicer than mud, but it's all I have."

Margot was about to reply when she suddenly tensed. The Sniffer was something she carried constantly; right now it was set to silent ringing. And something was vibrating urgently in her pack.

"What's this?" She pulled the unit out and looked at the screen, her feathers fluffing out in alarm. She had kept the hazard scanner set to look at Plucky – it was now reading '_Extreme Lethal Hazard – Immediate_' just as it had for the flower her researcher had stamped into the ground. She looked around – and remembered to look up. There was no brilliant white streak of fire in the sky from an incoming ballistic anvil or grand piano – nothing. Just Plucky, unwrapping one of the calorie-free candy bars.

"Don't touch that!" Years of Perfecto training had taught her caution with food; she had slipped rivals military-grade laxatives herself on occasion. It made subsequent sporting events or high-status dances so much more interesting for spectators.

Plucky paused, the aroma of the Luxovice Lightweight bar tantalising his beak. "What's up? It's zero-calorie. And it's in the original wrapper."

"I'm getting some very, very bad news about something about to happen. And I don't see anything but you and that candy about to happen around here." Margot stepped towards the nest, her eyes darting left and right. There was nothing to be seen but the usual lakeside scenery – and yet her own senses were telling her to run, hide or prepare to fight. She squared her shoulders, feeling again like a Perfecto first-year walking down a corridor liable to be strewn with well-hidden and highly amusing booby-traps – amusing for the one who set them, of course.

"I've been eating one of these every day. Never did me any harm." While Margot scanned the horizon, behind her back Plucky gave way to temptation. Even if the bar had gone stale, surely just one lick could hardly hurt? His tongue tasted the delicious chocolate.

The Sniffer in Margot's feather-hand screamed. Suddenly it was as if puffs of smoke were condensing all around them. Margot flinched but stood her ground, for what good that would do. _Just this once,_ she found time to think, _it'd be good to have that spooky loon here. This looks like her kind of thing_. "Plucky – get ready. Something's coming!" She was fleetingly glad to see that he had not paused to argue, but pulled out a baseball bat hidden in the fabric of the nest.

Margot was not the kind of Toon who carried large mallets in her hammerspace pocket; to get her out of trouble she was more likely to have the unlisted telephone numbers of extremely good lawyers. But neither had she made it through five years of Perfecto without having been constantly prepared for any level of physical trouble – and on a scale of one to ten, this looked like an eleven.

"Right." Margot pulled out a sports fencing rapier. Like most such, it had not a sharp point at the tip but a button – unlike most, the "button" was a glass ampoule. She swatted the tip on the ground, and the glass shattered to reveal what looked like silver glitter, that reflected the light in an odd way that somehow stung a Toon's eyes to look at.

"That's catalytic Dip!" Plucky yelped in horror. "You kept some after that accident at Perfecto last year? (*) That… that… that's…"

"That's last-ditch insurance," Margot swished the rapier experimentally. "Any Toon hit with this won't be getting up again. Ever."

Just at that instant, the clouds coalesced into one recognisable shape – Margot took a step backwards in shock and surprise, almost touching the nest. The nest's outline was starting to glow with lines of power that Shirley had tapped into the landscape's energies to power its protective spells. Some of them were as ultimately last-ditch as Margot's highly illegal Dip weapon, and they were just about to get triggered.

What had arrived in Acme Acres stepped forwards, hungry for its prey having been baffled earlier on that day. Just as it was about to seize the prey there was a brilliant flash – and an instant later the nest with the two ducks and two eggs – was gone.

What seemed an eternity later, Margot came to. She was lying in the dark on the reed matting that comprised Plucky's floor (and walls, and roof) with her arm draped over the nest itself. She hastily snatched it away, expecting to be blasted with the counter-spells she knew Shirley had built into its structure.

Nothing happened. Cautiously she tapped the tight-woven reed and willow nest. _Evidently the batteries are flat, _shetold herself_. It must have triggered some defensive shock that scared the thing away and knocked me out – it's almost morning already_. She could see a faint glow of light in the East. Looking in the nest, she could just make out Plucky and the eggs, apparently out cold and intact respectively. Almost tenderly, she draped his unresisting feather-arm over an exposed part of one of the eggs then settled down with her back against the nest to wait for daylight.

As the light grew, Plucky woke up. He looked around wildly, and relaxed slightly at the sight of the eggs and Margot keeping watch over them. "What, where, why, who?" He gabbled, his eyes darting to and fro in panic.

"Beats me," Margot shrugged. "We're still here in one piece, and that's what matters. Something pretty bad turned up – something I don't think your bat or my epee would have done much to. Looks like Shirley's defensive spells on the nest threw it back." She tapped the nest apprehensively. "Seems the nest's out of power, so it's not scrambling electronics any more. I'll try and contact Shirley and see if she knows what the thing was."

Plucky's eyes lit up, and his gaze strayed to the unused pile of gadgets in the corner of the hut. "Woo-hoo! Civilized life again! I can play my Numbmindo console at last!"

Margot pulled out her T-pad. She switched it on, stared at the display for a few seconds and frowned. "This should work anywhere, it uses satellites. I'm getting "no signal" – like we were on the far side of the moon, or somewhere."

"That's silly," Plucky scoffed. "Look – it's just light enough – you can see the side of Mount Acme. We haven't moved. There must be a power cut to the satellite or something."

"Hmm." Margot looked outside the reed hut cautiously. It was getting lighter by the minute, and the skies were clear. She looked up at them, a sudden feeling growing that something was very wrong. The skies were very clear indeed. Acme Acres was under the flight path of one of the major air lanes, and aircraft and contrails were usually in the skies twenty-four hours a day. She looked across at the shoulder of Mount Acme – it was a silhouette she had become very familiar with in the past week, and there was something definitely strange about it. She looked around at the fresh green vegetation, and her eyes went wide as she realised just what was wrong.

"Plucky… I know you have that super-hero form, The Toxic Revenger. Could you… do something for me?" A suspicion was growing in the back of her mind. "It looks like the nest won't make crispy roast duckling out of me any more – so I can keep the eggs warm for a minute."

"Sure! What do you want?" Plucky was out of the nest like an Olympic hurdler clearing the first barrier.

"I want you to check on pollution. Air and water both. And – it's getting light enough now. Fly up and tell me what you see." Margot felt a strange sensation as she stepped into the nest, and her feathers nestled around the eggs.

"An easy task for – The Toxic Revenger!" Plucky struck a pose, and spun-changed into his slightly tatty costume (no doubt the lack of dry-cleaning was an ecological choice.) He strode over to the lake, took a sip of water and gargled noisily. "Ahh… pure clean water. The cleanest ever! And now – to sample the glories of the open skies!" He surged into the air, rising to a couple of hundred feet – looked around and stopped dead as if he had run into a glass ceiling. Shock radiated from him in visible special-effect waves.

It was a wide-eyed, trembling Plucky who cautiously descended a minute later, his feathers bristling out in agitation. "Margot… from up there you can see Acme Acres, the town centre, the Looniversity, everything." His voice trembled. "Except – you can't. They're not there. This is silly! This is Lake Acme, that's Mount Acme. We're here – but it's all gone."

"I know something's wrong with time. These plants are all fresh Spring shoots, not fading Autumn reeds." Margot gestured at the reed-beds around then. "Acme Acres. Is it "not there" as in ancient ruins, or a glassy anvil impact crater?" Margot kept her voice level.

"No. It's all forest and grasslands. Like everything's been gone thousands of years. There's just primitive Toons off in the distance, buffalo and coyotes and all that." Plucky gulped. "And… I don't speak post-apocalypse mutant-speak.'"

"You might not have to. Look. Up on the shoulder of Mount Acme. Do you see anything?" She pointed up to where the sun was rising.

Plucky shook his head. "No – but there was nothing there anyway."

"You mean nothing but that old quarry that took a chunk out of the skyline. Forests grow, but rocks don't heal over. It's not there. It looks like nobody's dug it yet." Margot stood up, as Plucky resumed his place on the nest. Suddenly she laughed, long and loud.

Plucky blinked. "We're maybe stuck a thousand years before they invent cable TV or microwaveable pizzas, and you're laughing?"

Margot sat down heavily in the reed hut, possibly the most substantial building on the continent. "Oh, Plucky. Perfecto grads, we… appreciate a perfect trap. Even if we're the one it closes on, we appreciate the artistry. I think Shirley's just dropped us in something that'd take her to the head of my old Dirty Tricks class." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Plucky – I have a confession to make. It really won't matter telling you now. I was… exaggerating when I said I'd lost my money."

"You haven't?" Plucky's eyes widened.

Margot sighed. "I'm chief investor in a… new product that'll probably make millions. I was expecting to pick up my webbed feet in a week or two and stroll out of the swamp into a fortune. Or, I was. Now I'll never get a cent! I'm stuck in a world that might not have even invented money yet. Even if they have – I don't know Ancient Chippewa or whatever it is the locals speak." _Score two for Shirley,_ she mentally noted. _Even if I told Plucky about the eggs, we're stuck with them now._ _I couldn't have planned it better myself._

"Maybe it's just temporary. Maybe we'll only be here for a morning. There's no pollution… I mean none, not a trace. This land's pristine." A strange glint came to Plucky's eyes. "Woo-hoo! I know where the California Goldfields were – I mean will be. Or the Yukon, even. There'll be gold nuggets the size of my head just lying around in the stream beds. Even the Toxic Revenger won't mind anyone just picking it up – it's not as if we'd be mining. We can get in there first and – clean up!"

"Mmm. Nice idea." Margot sat on the edge of the nest, elbow on one knee and her bill propped on one feather-fist. "Nice in theory. But if we're stuck here forever – where will we ever get to spend it?"

(See the tale "Perfect Poise" for the tale of wacky comedy, college drama and a surplus Soviet-era Toon-killing chemical warhead. What fun!)

End Chapter Eight


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Shirley McLoon stood at the place in Acme swamp where her nest had been. There was nothing there now – nothing except a four-yard crater, perfectly round – in fact apart from where the muddy sides had slumped in, it looked as if a four-yard mathematically perfect sphere had been neatly removed from film-space.

"Boolean subtraction," Colonel Fenix commented. "A neat piece of geometry. Your nest and everything within range moved somewhere."

"You had a nest? A nest and eggs?" Angelina Angelique stared at the hole in the ground, then turned to Shirley. "You should have told me. I could have… taken care of them."

"Like, great, till lunchtime. We know how you'd take care of eggs then." Shirley sniffed, turning up her beak. "You won't get that chance with mine."

"You don't seem too concerned, Ensign McLoon." Hal Fenix raised an eyebrow. Unit Four Plus Two had returned from Hawaii just in time to see their instruments spotting the energy vampire homing in somewhere much closer to home – and detecting an energy flare that had put all the needles in the red. When they had arrived, there was literally nothing there.

Shirley smiled. "Plucky and my daughters are OK. I got Mother to teach me an emergency spell – it's more like a geas, fer sure. I felt it triggering. They got away safe."

Hal Fenix closed his eyes, detecting the remains of the spell. "Interesting. Something rather like a sorcerous ejector seat threw them clear. Except the inhabitants didn't trigger it; the threat itself did. Something more like an airbag, in that respect." He probed deeper. "Wouldn't it have left a trail that the vampire could follow?"

"That's a mondo negatoro. I borrowed an idea from Calamity's QuanToon physics. The spell threw them clear in a QuanToon jump. They didn't like pass through any intervening space." Shirley cast an amused glance at Angelina. "So there's no trail. If you don't know the spell and exactly what it threw – you'll never know where it landed them. If anything happened to me, Mother knows the spell. She could find them too."

_It'd be uncool to admit we got the idea from Plucky's 'Retro Rocket Rumble' mondo military-aggressive video game_, her aura commented snidely. Visions of equations involving missile velocity, engine power and throw weight flashed a little guiltily before her mental screen, except in the spell's case the ballistic trajectory arced across the astral plane into an alternate history rather than across the top of the atmosphere and down onto some enemy military-comedic complex.

"Hmm. And you sure they're out of danger there?" Hal asked.

"Fer sure! If anywhere's safe, that history line is. It's a far-off sideways timeline I found when I was astrally exploring last Solstice." Shirley offered Hal a look at her memories. "Its history is like, totally different starting way back. No 'civilisation', no industry, no farming, even. There's nobody around but a few harmonious hunter-gatherers."

"And it's so far out along the probability plane from here that time's warped severely. It's running about thirty times slower than we are." Hal nodded. "A good safe haven – we can be working here for days before they'll even have missed a meal, on their timeframe. So nothing's going to happen in a hurry – from our viewpoint."

"Exacto-mundo! Plucky's got two days of totally harmonious food. That's like two weeks, our time. I'll bring them back soon as it's safe." Shirley suddenly shuddered. There was no mystery about what had summoned the intruder this time. It had read her mind and knew exactly where to look – and had done its best to take a terrible vengeance on her. "After we've settled this vampire, I can like step over and bring them home."

Colonel Fenix relaxed slightly. "As long as you're sure where they went. If you got that spell just a fraction off, it'd drop them somewhere quite different." His mind mapped out a chart of the distorted time-flows; rather than a simple stream this was like a turbulent river with eddies in all directions. "There's alternative versions quite close where time's running faster, not slower. If anything the time-shift's even more extreme on some of them – skewed by factors of twenty or thirty."

"No problemo!" Shirley smiled. "I put Plucky on a way harmonious diet. If he'd been grossing out on pizzas every day like he wanted to, he'd have been like totally piling on the pounds. I worked out the spell exacto-mundo, down to the pound – to shift the mass of Plucky, the nest and my eggs." Her beak twitched in a mischievous smile. "That's why I had to put an electronics jammer spell on the nest too – make sure he didn't have anything heavy in there with him." Given the choice, Plucky would have brought the wide-screen TV and the stereo along.

Colonel Fenix thought hard for a few seconds. "Seems thorough. And you're saying – with the time-warp between here and where they are… to us, they're practically in cold-storage. Temporally speaking."

Angelina snickered. "That's one way of keeping eggs and poultry fresh."

"Quite. Now – to business. We recovered this from Hawaii. It's what the toon in the plantation hut was eating." Hal held up a Luxovice Lightweight candy bar. "This is the exact same brand as we found in Pittsburgh, made by Resorblous Inc. Would Plucky have had one of these? We can't ask him till you bring him back… and you'd better not do that till the vampire's caught."

"That's a mondo nega-toro!" Shirley's beak wrinkled in disdain. "A zero-nutrition candy? That's just got to be full of grody synthetic sugars, left-handed proteins and unnatural junk like that. I put Plucky on the best diet he's ever had. Some of those lentils were hand-picked by monks in the garden of a Himalayan Ashram."

Hal frowned, weighing the diet bar in his feather-hand. "And yet… it's something. I really don't like the aura of this. Let's get it back to where we can take a closer look."

With a last long glance at the hole in the ground now rapidly filling with water, Shirley followed the rest of the team back towards her family home. She had spent days plumbing her nest's defensive spells into the natural energy flows of this landscape – it would not be connected to the local equivalents where it had ended up. Still; in a timeline where there were only a very few hunter-gatherers living balanced lives as part of the ecosystem – Plucky should be in no need of such protections.

_Unless without material technology they're all like totally unfriendly shamans and sorcerers_, her aura put in sourly. _Getting unholy power from_ _Toon sacrifices and other way dark-side junk._ Shirley hushed her. Their calculations had been double-checked to the nearest few pounds of weight and flickers of living aura; the spell would have thrown the nest, Plucky and her eggs as exactly on target as one of her mate's uncool video games featuring Intercontinental Ballistic anvils. The astral equivalents to payload throw weight and engine thrust had been calculated exactly, and all the dimensional cross-currents taken into account. Her aura grudgingly agreed_. Well, we got them there fer sure. What could possibly go wrong?_

Unit Four Plus Two returned to the Loon family household, where another two army-surplus trailers were being delivered to the roadside. Sergeant Clarke Gander was standing by them with an official _clipboard, administrative, ballistic armoured, Mark 17 bis_. He waved a feather-hand to Shirley and the Addams Academy toons. "Temporary accommodation. We can't keep commuting every day by Portable Hole."

"We'd wear a non-portable hole in it?" Angelina asked innocently.

The gander nodded. "Strange but true. Or, Ensign McLoon, you could billet them in your family home?" He nodded up at the gothic styled house.

Shirley hesitated. Her attic room was her sanctum, scented of sandalwood and patchouli oils, every detail precisely calculated over the years to bring her into maximum harmony with the cosmos. She shivered at the thought of Calgari, Angelina and Tlalocopa's dark auras in there like muddy footprints on a priceless tapestry. "I'll stay with the Unit. Really going home, I'll leave that till – I get leave." She planned to bring her hatchlings up there after bonding with them at hatching, helping their fragile young auras tune in with the delicate energy flows she had set up with them in mind. Definitely there would be no television or Numbmindo console games for them. Where they were right now – that was another thing they were safe from, apart from astral vampires.

An hour later she had settled into the cramped military trailer, having compromised slightly by bringing one of her bean-bags from the house. She had grave doubts about the organic provenance of the standard issue "_bag, bean-filled, hippie-type trooper relaxation, Model M1967_". Suddenly there was a knock on her trailer door. She opened it to see the three Addams Academy toons outside.

"We're all stood-down till tomorrow. Colonel Fenix found another bunch who're covering. Come round for some socialising? We can chew the fat. Unsaturated vegetable fat, naturally. Help us bond as a unit." It was Calgari, the raven who spoke.

Shirley's aura spotted and deflected the Persuasion spell he was stealthily casting. But she nodded anyway, half reluctantly. Her eggs were out of their reach now and she knew that, like it or not, she and the Addams Academy toons had to work together. "Like, I suppose I have to sooner or later."

The temporary accommodations were somewhat cramped, with Tlalocopa and Angelina sharing a trailer. As Shirley looked around, her feathers ruffled in disgust at the décor. It had not taken long for them to put up posters of some of the gross bands that she knew Plucky still liked despite all her efforts to force him to the path of harmony.

"It's like you're totally into the bad vibes, not just the music," She complained, looking up at yet another group only identifiable by horror masks. "What's wrong with harmonious bubblegum pop? My parents met at a live Archies gig, Mother told me."

Angelina smirked. "Archies gig? That just says it all. MY parents met up at the one and only American concert by Extreme Noise Terror."

"Si! Doom-laden Grindcore with the hot Thrash Metal beats. Es bueno!" Tlalocopa nodded. "To speak of parents, mine were in a band for years, _Libre, Muerto, Libre_."

"Coolest!" I've heard about them. Mexico City's most crucial Death Mariachi group. They used real skulls as castanets." The magpie's beady eyes gleamed in excitement. "Thinking of entertainment in a trailer – I saw the trailer for this on TV. Today in WashingToon. It's about time to start." She needed no TV remote control, just pointing her feather-finger at the wall-mounted TV and letting her telekinesis do the work.

Shirley's heart sank. Political question-time shows were as irritating for her aura as most soap operas – especially when she recognised the guest star. A tall, sallow-faced human toon was someone she knew better through Plucky's memories than her own. "Way bad karma. I'd heard Mister Hitcher was on the political circuit in WashingToon. They totally deserve each other."

"He's my hero." Calgari spoke proudly, summoning his air guitar and strumming a few bars of what sounded like a Death Metal version of _Hail To The Chief_. "He's my kind of leader." The raven winked. "Last week they asked him what he'd do about party opposition. He said he'd have the cellars of the White House set up so he could get them delivered in batches and 'address their differences in a high-impact hands-on style.' That's the man gets my vote." Political commentators had proclaimed that electing Mister Hitcher as President would be good for the economy, at least those parts of it making axes and power tools. His party was already adopting his trademarked hockey-mask as a badge of allegiance.

"Fer sure!" Angelina nodded enthusiastically. "I'd vote for him. So should you, Shirley. You can tell he's modest and retiring. Why else does he wear that face mask?" All three Addams Academy graduates snickered.

"They used to say violent insanity isn't all it's cracked up to be," Calgari mused. "But it's like anything – all in a day's work for a good PR toon. With the right spin you can do anything."

"Work your way in from the inside, that's the way to go." Angelina mused. "There's no point in fighting City Hall when you can get inside it instead, out of the rain and onto the comfy chairs. Why have the hassle of breaking laws when you can make them bend your way?"

"Bueno!" Tlalocopa nodded enthusiastically. "And we stay here in this job – maybe I get to sacrifice to Rain God and get paid for it!"

"That's fer sure." Angelina preened her two-tone feathers. "I get to do plenty of what I like here, and no worries about the cops hassling me for it."

Shirley's beak wrinkled in distaste as she looked around the caravan. Not even the herbal teas were wholesome here. On her own shelves she had packets of caffeine-free humanely-picked tisanes with names like 'Tranquil Dawn' and 'Tibetan Breezes' – Tlalocopa's equivalents were labelled 'Red Haze' and 'Psychotic Frenzies'. She cast a suspicious eye at the chupacabra. "I'm like, amazed you wanted to join us, not some super-villain bunch. This outfit's supposed to protect freedom and justice."

"Oh, but I DO." Tlalocopa leaned towards her. "I want everyone to have the freedom to worship any Deity they like. I do, exactly the way the Deities really want it." She patted her hand-chipped flint sacrificial knife in its basketwork scabbard at her belt.

"You're a Neo-Aztec! Your grody deities want blood!" Shirley recoiled in loathing. Although remembering her History classes she had nothing good to say about the Conquistadores, she had often felt they and the Aztecs deserved each other.

"Well, so? Some religions want tithes. With mine, you get to sacrifice your enemies for bonus points. It's a win-win situation." The chupacabra winked at her. "Si, the fire-gods and rain-gods Huehueteotl and **Huitzilopochtl have been doing their jobs every day unpaid for five hundred years. Is that fair? They used to get maybe two hundred thousand sacrifices a year, every year. Add that up with compound interest, and you get…" she pulled out an old solar-powered calculator and busily tapped away for a few minutes. She showed the result to Angelina, who whistled appreciatively. "This is what they have been robbed of. They must have Justice! Payment in full!" **

** "And more. You forgot to multiply it by the increased number of people around here since 1520 who've been using all that un-paid-for fire and rain," Angelina's beady eye twinkled. She enjoyed the look on Shirley's face. "Hey, you're either for integration, and Justice, or you're not. We are. Like, Mister Hitcher's fighting discrimination too. There's never been a convicted psychotic axe-murderer elected yet – and that's discrimination of the worst kind."**

** "Of course I want integration – just not with you!" Shirley snapped. A second later she realized what she had said and clapped her feather-hand over her bill in horror.**

** Angelina Angelique snickered. "So, the light side of the Farce is ours at last. Which leaves you…" She pulled out and offered Shirley an official military Form FM1077-D, kept for just such occasions. "Just sign here and it's official. Welcome to the Dark Side of the Farce."**

**Though Shirley backed away from the innocuous paper with a gesture of disgust, she grimly acknowledged a part of her new life - the Toon military really did have a form for absolutely everything.**

While Shirley was struggling to keep her karma balanced, over on the far side of town other folk were equally busy.

"That was a strain." Mary Melody closed the door of her family apartment, just back from visiting Rymela. "I know she's much better these days, but still… once she gets an idea into her head, there's not much shifting it. Or room for anything else."

Jaggi DiSpeckle cocked an attentive ear. The zebra was busy on the computer, cross-referencing everything he could find on the Committee of Responsible Cartoons and checking it with the material Professor Bugs had given them. "What's it this time?"

Mary gave a wry smile. "I'm meant to be good at Media work, getting a point over on camera. It shouldn't have taken me an hour to persuade her that now isn't a great time for her to start her first litter with George, just for the sake of it." She hesitated. "But that Chairperson, she made her so mad she was about ready to... make a start, right on the spot – and I can understand that. Really understand it." Her eyes flashed, looking down at her coffee-brown furless hand as it rested lovingly on Jaggi's striped fur.

Jaggi nodded, thinking of Elmyra and George. Hopefully their future would be guided more by comedic than genetic principles. The idea of Duff genetics producing a litter of furless rabbits was more of a horror-film than a comedy. "Here. I've been checking with what's not on the public sites. References in memoirs, biographies. There's a Toon who was ruined by them in the late 1940's, and her story's never been told."

"You know she has one?" Mary looked at the screen. "Oh. I see what you mean. She tried for years to publish it, but every publisher was threatened with having the pants sued off them. Even Toon publishers who might not need to wear any."

Jaggi stood and stretched. "And I think we can guess who was the ones objecting. I've looked her up; she lives in a retirement home the far side of Acme Metropolis. The Some_Terrain vehicle's ready outside – if you want to head out for an interview?"

Mary smiled sweetly – but there was a definite hint of steel there that was nothing to do with dental work. She always tried to stay agreeable – but like the sweetest peach, there was a hard core of stone underneath that anyone sinking their teeth into would break those teeth on. "Do I want to hear a story that's been sat on since the 1940's? Do I want some more low-down on that low-down Committee of Responsible Cartoons? Oh, yes." She patted her ever-present satchel where she kept her recorder and notebooks. "Let's roll it!"

Half an hour later, the suburban half-track pulled up outside a four-storey block labelled "Sunset Creek."

Jaggi switched off the engine and looked up at the well-maintained building. Flowers grew in window-boxes under most windows. "Not bad. There are worse creeks to be up – with or without a paddle," he mused. "The address is the top floor."

Two minutes later, they had climbed the stairs and stood outside a neatly painted door. Mary slipped into her interviewing mode; she put her mind in neutral, trying to blank out all her personal assumptions and beliefs – the interview was not about her. She knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it opened.

Unlike Plucky Duck, Mary never had claimed she was perfect. She stepped back, her eyes going wide and her polished interviewing manner cracking like a mirror with an ACME anvil slung through it. "You!" She gasped, suddenly recognising the one Toon who Warner Brothers had almost managed to erase from their history. She was old now – younger than Professor Bugs in calendar years, but the energies of an appreciative worldwide audience had kept the rabbit from ageing.

"Yes, me." The grey-haired figure seemed used to getting that reaction. "Yo' recognises me? It's been a long time since ah was a film star. Coal Black of 'Coal Black and de sebben dwarves', that's me." She smiled. "You'd better come in."

While their host bustled with preparing coffee in the tidy kitchen, Mary and Jaggi sat on the sofa. "You might have told me," Mary cast her zebra an annoyed glance.

Jaggi gave an embarrassed equine grin, his lips peeling back. "You wouldn't have come. And we need her story. I know what you feel about that film."

Mary nodded determinedly, getting back into her professional mood. Back at the Looniversity, toons without a role-model had worked under rather a handicap. Babs had envied Buster Bugs' example for years until she found a mentor from the 1930's, an utterly forgotten showgirl called Honey. Some folk had asked Mary if she had Coal Black as an ancestor or mentor, but she had always loudly denied it. Coal (her actual name was Cola) was more like Red Hot Riding Hood – who was now mentoring three human toon showgirls in the junior years at Acme Loo, but Red had never been Mary's style.

"How'd you like your coffee, hon?" Cola came in with a tray.

"Black. Very." Mary pulled herself up to sit stiffly, her reporter's suit smoothed out.

The silver-haired human smiled at her and Jaggi. "No white stripes?" She winked at Jaggi. "She has better taste in men."

Despite everything, Mary snickered. Then she pulled herself up again. "We'd like to interview you. We're doing an article on the Committee for Responsible Cartoons." That was true enough, though she had her doubts on whether it would see daylight.

Cola's expression soured. "Good luck. They're poison. They're the ones kept me and the gang from making any more movies."

Mary switched her recorder on. "Did it need them to stop you? I've heard about the first one, read all the books. Having it as a Disney parody, was one thing. Having it as an…. Afro-American parody, was what killed the idea." _And not before time_, was her unspoken thought.

Cola snorted. "Have you set eyes on that film of mine for real? Parody? What Toon doesn't do Parody? I've heard tell you gots Professor Fudd and Yosamite Sam teaching at that Looniversity place. You're tellin' me they ain't parodies?"

Mary flinched slightly. It was true, she had never seen the original film – very few people had. "It's not a film that gets shown. I don't think the Looniversity archive even has a copy."

Cola nodded. "I got me an old projector in the closet, if it still works. And if you helps me get it set up, I can show you just what you thinks you's talkin' about."

Half an hour later, the film was shown and Mary was wishing she had seen it in her first year at Acme Loo. Not that Coal Black was her style as a mentor – but she had missed out on a treat for all those years. Professor Bugs had been right when he said it had been a jumping time for Toons.

"I can see why some folk would get uptight about it now," Jaggi mused, opening the curtains while Mary put the projector and film back in their boxes. "But at the time – what did you think?"

"All my neighbourhood, they just roared with laughter," Cola reminisced. "They all said it was 'bout the best thing since the end of Prohibition. We'd never had a film like that all our own. We shoulda had a hundred like it."

"Except for the Committee of Responsible Cartoons?" Mary suggested.

"Oh, yeah. I'll tell you the way they works. Say you wanted to open up a rib-roast diner and they didn't like you. They'd say whoa, you're causing offence. Not to us, we don't matter none, it's them poor veg-e-tarians we gotta protect, to the death. Yours, naturally. You gets the picture?"

"Yes. That fits." Mary sat back, her mind racing. "Listen, and we'll tell you why we're so interested in them…"

An hour later, Jaggi and Mary said farewell and headed downstairs. They had a lot to talk about. Mary had scanned Cola's unpublished autobiography, which was full of information she knew the world would be keen to know given the chance.

"She wouldn't have been my Mentor, I suppose," Mary mused as they opened the driver's hatch of the Some_terrain vehicle. "But I was wrong to be ashamed of her."

"She never gave up, did she? Even after her film career was smashed, she tried everything. Even a stint as Cupid. I'd have thought she'd be good at that." Jaggi had been amazed to see on the wall an unused Cupid's Arrow, one of the insanely rare Plot Devices of Mass Effect. They were supposed to be used in pairs, but the preceding Toon in the job had lost one in a crash. Despite invoking the Air Force "Broken Arrow" protocols intended for lost MegaToon yield Plot devices, it had never been found.

"And that Eleanor Vandensnaffel, the Chairwoman… well, now we know why she's so down on Elmyra and George as a couple." Mary snickered. "Losing your fiancé to a Toon bunny-girl… and not one of Mister Heffner's Playboy ones, either. That'd hurt."

"Mmm." Jaggi carefully fired up the engines in sequence, and they moved out into the traffic. "It'd be enough to make anyone paranoid about the idea. And seeing plots everywhere against human Toons. Plucky once told me that everything could be explained by a conspiracy of conspiracy theories. And if there wasn't any evidence, it was solid proof "they" must have removed it."

"That's Plucky." Mary toyed with one of the beaded braids of hair that ran down each side of her neck. "The year before you arrived, he spent most of it hunting for evidence of the Evil Alien Overlords he'd heard really control everything. Some people just shouldn't read Conspiracy Theory books."

"Not such a bad thing to do – if there were any, we ought to know. Then we could do something about it." Jaggi studied Mary's expression. "That wasn't his idea?"

Mary suppressed a snort of laughter. "Oh, he said it was. Shirley read his mind and spilled the beans on what he really wanted. He wanted to find them and get in with them. Get himself an Overseer's job."

Jaggi smiled. Suddenly his ears went right up, and he tapped the screen showing the growth of the Committee of Responsible Cartoons. "That's just given me an idea." He whispered in Mary's ear for a minute.

Mary's brown eyes went wide. "That's as rotten and devious as anything Babs could have come up with… if she'd gone to Perfecto. I'd usually say nobody deserves that." She turned to the screen, and paused for a few seconds deep in thought. "Mind you, in this case I think we can make an exception."

As luck would have it, Mary and Jaggi missed seeing Rhubella and Fifi returning from a shopping trip by about ten seconds; their paths almost crossed outside the Mega-Mall. Had they stopped to talk, that would have changed the timing of Fifi's whole weekend.

Looking around for a break in the traffic, Rhubella nudged Fifi, and pointed over to the bus stop. Two handsome skunks were sitting forlornly on their backpacks, while one of them inspected a timetable.

"We've met them before," Rhubella had a memory for names and faces that would have well qualified her for a Police or Journalism career. "Acme mega-mall – the day we got engaged. Remember?"

"'Ow could I evair forget?" Fifi's ears went up. "Renee and 'is brothair Jacques, from Quebec. 'Zey were going to work at ze summair classes of ze athletics, at ze Acme Bowl."

"Looks like they're heading home. Shall we say hello?" Rhubella's naked tail swished.

Fifi nodded. "Certainment!" She waved, and with Rhubella they crossed the road to the bus stop.

The two skunk males' ears went up as they saw the two girls. Renee stood and bowed. "Eh, mademoiselle! Eet ees zo good to see ze friendly faces!"

Fifi smiled, nodding towards their backpacks. "You are going 'ome to Quebec?"

Two skunk tails drooped. "Eh, oui. Mais, malheureusement we 'ave ze problem. We 'ave been working as ze sports coaches in ze vacances. Ze company zat paid us and provided ze accommodation, zey 'ave gone bust. We 'ave ze tickets, but 'zey are reserved for Monday – and we 'ad to be leaving our apartment." Jacques shrugged. "We 'ope we can travel early, and if possible, sleep on ze bus."

"You're stuck for a place to sleep?" Rhubella asked, a small smile on her muzzle.

Renee nodded. "We 'ave 'ad ze fine time at Acme Acres all Summair. Helas! Eet ees ze misfortune. Anothair few days and all would 'ave been parfait. We 'ave nowhere to go."

"I didn't even have them on my list. I didn't know they were still in town." Rhubella whispered. She looked the pair up and down appreciatively. The brothers were tall and handsome; they had evidently been working extremely hard as athletics coaches, their fur shining with a healthy sheen. She remembered Shirley reading their auras at their first meeting and giving them an unqualified thumbs-up. "Fifi. What do you think?" Her naked tail wrapped around Fifi's purple and white glory.

Fifi's eyes went wide. "Eet is fate. Destiny, 'as put zem our way." She squeezed her wife's paw. "Ruby… you wish me to – invite zem ovair? Zat ees… ze idea tres agreeable." She looked down, very conscious of still wearing a knee-length skirt. Unlike the two skunk males, right now she could not "conceal" any more than Rhubella.

Rhubella smiled and nodded to the skunk brothers. "If you'd like a couple more days in Acme Acres before your ticket's valid – Fifi and me, we can put you up – I mean, accommodate you." She squeezed her wife's purple paw lovingly in return.

"'Zat would be wondairful!" Renee's eyes were suddenly downcast. "But we 'ave been paid only by ze cheques zey posted 'ome to la Canada – we 'ave no money to repay you."

Fifi gulped, her tail starting to fume lightly. "Pas de problem! I am certain we can – come to ze arrangements."

Picking up their luggage, the brothers accepted an arm apiece that Fifi and Rhubella offered, and followed them home.

Far off in a different Acme Acres, Margot Mallard was taking stock. Plucky had stayed in his Toxic Revenger form and gone flying off to scout the area, which left her sitting on the nest. She shook her head. "Be careful what you wish for – you might get it," she quoted dryly. Despite everything, she felt a warm admiration for Shirley. The loon had evidently read her mind, spotted her intentions with Plucky and planned an exquisite vengeance, better than anything Margot had ever envisaged at Perfecto. "Sure, I broke Roderick and Danforth financially – cleaned them out. But they could bounce back, one day. Taking me away from the money forever, just when the Corona project was about to deliver – that's something Mister Boris would have given her an A for in Dirty Tricks class. There IS no money to get, here. No possible way to get back." Unlike Plucky, she did not expect to see her home timeline again.

Margot looked around the hut, glad that they had set it up. By the vegetation it was apparently mid Spring right now, but an open nest was still definitely poor shelter. In one corner was Plucky's collection of electronic games and DVDs, now completely useless. She looked through the DVD titles appreciatively. "Drag Race burn-off championships… Celebrity supermodel food-fight… Extreme Cheerleader Wardrobe Malfunctions… and what's this?" She hefted a ten DVD boxed set, snorting with amusement as she read its contents. "'_Russ Meyer's fighting femmes – the complete film collection'_. There's someone who likes mammal girls, all right – very… mammalian."

Margot smiled, looking appraisingly at one of the scaled-down film posters on the cover where a ferocious Amazon Warrior styled avian was graphically demonstrating that a swan's wing really could break a toon's arm. "Even that swan had fur in her family tree somewhere along the line. And plenty of it." Evidently Plucky liked his women large, aggressive and buxom, perhaps courtesy of his own part-mammal chromoplasm. "I can do that. Beats me what he ever saw in Shirley."

She relaxed on the nest, savouring the exquisite ironies. It was all coming clear to her now. Shirley had told her about the eggs' parentage just before marooning her with no possible comeback – and the knowledge was a 'poisoned chalice' she had been cleverly handed. The timing had been perfect. She was far worse off for knowing the truth; not only Plucky could never be told, but not telling him might eat at what conscience she had. Doubtless Shirley expected her to have an Acme Loo and not a Perfecto school level of conscience.

Suddenly Margot snorted in amusement, looking down at the pale eggs. "Of course, if these hatch out looking like geese or phoenix chicks, all bets are off, and it won't be my problem" she reminded herself. "But the genius of it is – we're stuck with them anyway! Talk about "all sales are final" – Plucky got sold quite a bill of goods." At Perfecto, as well as learning to have your cake and eat it, the curriculum had taught many ways to make other Toons pay for their cake and not have it_. Shirley's managed that very well. Stuck the pair of us on her nest with her eggs and nowhere to go. Turned us into free labour forever. Make that an A+, in Mister Boris's Dirty Tricks class_.

Just then, with a theatrical flourish Plucky as the Toxic Revenger landed by the beach. The mallard looked tired. "Margot! I've looked around for miles. Not a single cowboy chuck waggon or cavalry fort or anything – I hoped we hadn't gone back too far, the Wild West I could handle." For a second his eyes bulged as he thought of Margot in saloon-girl outfits. Then he shook his head sadly. "We must be way back in time." He sagged visibly. "I shouldn't complain there's no pollution. But there's no civilisation either, nothing." That time of year, there was not even a sniff of a natural brush fire's smoke on the wind from a hundred miles away.

Margot patted the nest. "It'll be dark in an hour. We've got enough food for tonight and breakfast – tomorrow, the hard work begins. Probably, for the rest of our lives."

Plucky gulped. "Hard work?"

Margot looked at him steadily. "If we're not 'rescued' – we have to eat. There is no corner mall out there. There is no weenie-burger. I hope there's plenty of fish and shellfish; the water's clean and Lake Acme's never been commercially fished. We'd better learn fast." It was a good thing it was now Spring, she reflected. Shirley had evidently done her homework on the best time for her eggs to hatch in the wilds.

"But we've no nets, no fishing-rods!" Plucky looked around, as if expecting a fully-equipped fishing tackle shop to materialise.

Margot took a deep breath. "Plucky. I think we've just been handed a life sentence, with hard labour. Worse than that – at least in prison they feed you. We have to go hunting and fishing now. All the time. There's wood around over there for the shafts of fish-spears – and we've thin metal and strong plastic we can use for blades and barbs."

"Where? This isn't the Acme Looniversity metal shop." Plucky followed Margot's gaze to the pile of his electrical goods. "Oh no. Not that." His eyes went wide. "Anything but that."

"What else are we going to use? They didn't teach us Stone Tools 101 in Perfecto – and I never saw it on an Acme Looniversity timetable, either." Margot raised an eyebrow.

"But… some of these are collector's items! You can't just stroll down to Acme mega-mall and replace them." Plucky reached protectively for his cherished collection of greatest Celebrity sporting Monster-Truck accidents, and suddenly froze. The idea had finally registered that there was no more Acme Mega-mall. For that matter there was no Acme Acres, from where he was sitting.

"We've got polycarbonate from the DVDs we can sharpen as blades. Copper wiring and whatever other metal we can re-use from the rest of the stuff. Anyway, what else are you going to do with it? The nearest mains supply might be a few thousand years that-a-way." Margot looked at the panic-stricken mallard, and felt something inside her case-hardened spirit soften. _Must be what's happening to my metabolism. I bet Shirley could just smell the oxytocin coming off me,_ she excused herself. She reached over to his portable DVD player. "This is the only thing with batteries apart from my T-pad, and those wouldn't fit. They won't last long, though. Tonight – you'd better choose us a good film. One you really like. It may be the last one we ever see."

Plucky shuddered. Then he drew himself up, and nodded. "The savage contest of Plucky Duck, Pioneer, against the wilds begins! Toon versus territory." He posed dramatically.

Margot clapped. "Bravo! Bravo! That would make a great film_." If there was anyone to film it – or ever watch it_, she thought wryly. She was glad she had not had the chance to tell Plucky about the film studio who had wanted to talk to him in Oregon. There was quite enough that they would be missing out on now.

An hour later, they had shared the beansprout burritos and were looking out at the sunset over the lake. The skies were clear, the visibility sparkling in the clean air. Margot looked down at the empty packets. They had better not throw anything away – every scrap of paper and plastic was something they could not replace here.

Plucky had been sorting through his DVD collection, staring hungrily at one title after another. He weighed up one in each feather-hand. "Shirley really hated all these. Especially after she… watched them from inside my head. She didn't have to do that. She could have just asked me, but she did her mind-meld with me instead."

Margot nodded. "I can work that one out. She wanted to really know what you saw in it all." Suddenly she snickered. "Oh, I'll bet she hated this one. Well-built vixens in action – and if you liked it, while she mind-melded with you – at that minute, she had to like it too. Miss Purity Loon, finding herself enjoying this. Serves her right." She picked up the DVD of _Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill_. "I've never seen this one, but I've heard about it. Want to watch?" The liner notes mentioned the film was shot in wide-screen format specially to get the heroine's figure to fit.

Plucky smiled, despite everything. He put the DVD in the player, propped it up so both he and Margot could see it comfortably, and relaxed in the nest alongside her. "Everyone take your seats, for the final showing." He struck a pose, and sang the introduction to The Cramps' classic homage to the film: "**If you want to see, beautiful girls, driving fast sports cars, and breaking jocular, tory-type he-man male's spines – boumph!" He pulled a microphone from Hammerspace and sang from the heart, his voice ringing out into the great empty silence around them:**

_ "If you like wild living, fast_

_ And if you want to wind up giving your all – you will find_

_ Pussycat, she's ridin' reckless, Pussycat, she's riding high_

_ And if you think you can take her – well, just you try!_

_It's that she doesn't see, what's wrong from right_

_She's living fast and free – child of the night_

_In her life there'll be no time for love – _

_You'll never tame her - make up your mind! You will find_

_Pussycat, she's wild and reckless, Pussycat, she's riding high_

_ And if you think you can take her – well, just you try!_

_Well, come on and try!"_

Margot snickered, looking at the liner notes as the opening credits rolled. "Three well-stacked girls racing hot-rod cars across the desert, out on a crime spree. That's certainly not by Disney. Sounds more like my kind of show. Roll film!"

An hour after the batteries ran out, it was dark in the reed hut. With no street lights or sky-glow, the night sky was blacker than any Margot had ever seen, even that time the Perfecto seniors had been exiled to the KazakhsToon deserts. Plucky had fallen asleep, having watched the whole film through with her before the player's batteries finally died. And that was the end of that, Margot thought as she quietly ejected the DVD. Tomorrow she had designs involving tipping fish-spears with its sharpened fragments.

She lay down next to Plucky. Sympathy was not an emotion she had much experience with, and the sensation was strange. She could never have afforded such a weakness at Perfecto, not that she had ever felt the need to. It was strange, in a world with nothing to buy, to realise what she could suddenly afford_. You won't get on the big screen now, Plucky Duck_, she realised, and thought of what other interests he had according to his DVD collection. None of them would happen in a stone-age world. _You'll never slam a re-entry vehicle into the top of the atmosphere, riding it down to cheering crowds_. _You'll never strap yourself into a 300 miles an hour borane-fuelled jet dragster at Santa Monica, either._ She suppressed a snort of amusement. _Oh well._ _With the pollution those things spew out, that should make the Toxic Revenger part of you happy_.

_And our only edible treat – a zero-calorie candy bar. What a time to have nothing but diet foods_. She could have wished her last meal of civilised foods had been something tastier than the free-range, humanely harvested beansprouts – evidently Shirley had planned that for them with exquisite irony. If Shirley wanted Plucky and her hatchlings to live on nothing but fresh organic foods and grow up as part of the ecosystem – she had definitely sent them to the right place.

_Give that loon girl an A**, in Mister Boris's Dirty Tricks class_. Margot stretched out next to Plucky, her purple feathers pressed closely to him for warmth. Anything else, she realised, could wait. Despite all the things they were short of now – suddenly they had all the time in the world.

On the relatively well-lit first basement of the Loon family household, Colonel Fenix scratched his head-feathers in frustration. In front of him was a pile of Luxovice Lightweight bars, bought by his buzzards from half a dozen candy stores and mini-malls across Acme Acres. He had not gone so far as eating one – though evidently millions of Toons did, usually without ill-effect.

"There's some sort of taint on these – it's so faint, though," he tapped one of the bars with a finger-feather. "I've seen worse on newspapers… ones edited by Toons we had to have words with." He had expected to find some form of summoning spell on them – much as a regular Vampire could not step over a hearth-stone without being invited in, the act of eating specially cursed foods could make a Toon vulnerable to its maker. Hal shook his head. He was still not going to risk sampling any himself.

Just then Clarke Gander knocked on the door and entered, carrying a printout. The goose looked worried. "Sir – you asked me to run a trace on this 'Resorblus Inc.' who make the stuff – or at least put it out. I've found a lot – but it's what I haven't found that worries me."

Hal nodded as he skimmed over the report and read out the headlines. "Luxovice Lightweights become first for decades to spread without advertising… other chocolate manufacturers are amazed at the low prices for a miracle product… interview with ACME TV about reputed use of recycled Styrofoam as main ingredient… all sounds about right." Then his feathery antennae went right up. "There's no such company as Resorblus Inc. registered anywhere. Not as a company, a factory or an importer. It has no employees, no suppliers, nothing. It doesn't exist."

Clarke Gander cast a wary eye at the calorie-free candy bars on the table. "These are coming from somewhere."

"Mmm." Hal looked back at the earlier headlines. "Well, well. It's a small world. The interviewer for ACME TV was Mary Melody. Let's get Ensign McLoon in here. I want to set up an interview with her friend."

"Sir!" Clarke Gander saluted as Colonel Fenix sent Shirley an urgent mental summons.

"And then we might find out," Hal mused, steepling his feather-fingers "If this Resorblus Inc. doesn't exist – just WHO did she interview?"

End Chapter Nine


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Shirley McLoon stood outside the street door of the K-ACME television studios, waiting for Mary Melody to finish her scheduled broadcast. She had taken off her nondescript green jacket, and wore a loose cotton gypsy-styled blouse. It suddenly felt strange to be out of uniform.

"Shirley!" She turned to see Mary coming out of the other door. "It's great to see you. I missed seeing you at Babs' sleepover. You're doing OK with your job?"

"Way strange." Shirley shivered slightly at that idea. "I'm actually getting used to it." She cast her mind back to the preceding month; serving in an Abnatural Forces unit, she had saved Acme Acres and a lot else from some decidedly inharmonious invaders. "We've kept the peace, cosmic-style. I couldn't have done it on my own. If I quit – that'd be awful karma. Now I know just how they need me."

Mary nodded sympathetically. Her parents were medics, and they had often discussed the same feelings towards their trade. "How's Plucky and the eggs?"

Shirley winced slightly. "That's the downside of this job, it like puts you totally up against some really heavy negative types. There's some ancient astral vampire or some junk, who's hunting them because of me." Her feathers drooped. "Plucky and my daughters are safe for now, but… that's the way it's going to be."

"Yes. Getting yourself in the public eye has its problems. I've seen your rock videos." Mary suddenly smiled. "Your boss wants to interview me. Afterwards, could I interview you both as rock stars? Making videos with Frank Sikosis and everything."

"Fer sure!" Shirley nodded happily, some of her tension evaporating as they walked towards the bus stop. "Colonel Fenix, he totally hides in plain sight. It's frightening, what people just don't see when you put it right in front of their beaks. You must like, see a lot of that in your job."

Mary pulled a face. "Too much. Especially since I'm covering WashingToon still. Concorde Condor's doing well. He gives good sound-bites." She had never managed to learn spin-changing, but she hunched her shoulders and her voice imitated the dopey buzzard nearly as well as Babs could have done. All that was missing was the drooping beak and the Lunatic Fringe haircut. "_I, ah, done heard that whoever you votes for to be President Of The United States, some guy called POTUS always gets in instead. Well, t'ain't fair, nope, nope, nope. If I get in, you'd better look out Mister Potus, 'cause I'm taking your job, yup, yup, yup!" _

Shirley snickered. "We could totally do worse."

Mary shivered. "Don't I know it. And we will, if Mister Hitcher gets in. He's got a good team of writers – and they know all the tricks." She changed her expression to a rigid, truculent stare to match the candidate, then back to the expression usually found on a cheerful, oily-looking political lobbyist. "Mister Hitcher supports all previously repressed minorities, many of whom have been shamefully locked away for simple acts of performing-arts style self-expression. Remember, kids – '_some people just are axe-murderers – get over it!_'"

"Mondo bogus." Shirley shook her head in despair. According to her new comrades, she was the one who had joined the Dark Side of the Farce, with her repressive and reactionary ideas. By Calgari's opinion the New Age was already over, and he was voting for a president whose party motto was now '_chainsaw massacre_ - _don't knock it if you haven't tried it_.' Sales of high-security basement renovations including giant self-powered bacon-slicers and cheese-graters seemed likely to soar, stimulating that core component of the economy.

The bus arrived, and they headed towards the edge of town where Shirley's family home nestled at the foot of Mount Acme. They had only been going a few minutes when the bus halted, and the driver announced they had to make a detour. Large hoardings announcing '_Road closed due to gratuitous maintenance'_ blocked the road ahead.

"I sense a great disturbance in the Farce," Shirley suddenly sat up rigidly in her seat. "Mary – something like totally inharmonious is going down!"

"I'm on it. Let's get off and see." Mary hit the button to stop the bus. They hopped off at the next stop, and for a second Shirley stopped and concentrated.

"That way!" The loon's aura soared up to get a better view, and pointed urgently ahead.

"Looks like a reporter's life is always busy," Mary pulled out her video camera. Ahead they could see half a dozen Toons clustered round a camera truck, and a rather more serious barrier of barbed wire and fluorescent warning signs blocked the view ahead.

"Oh wow. That's us, my bunch. That's Mister Hansen, one of our scriptwriters." Shirley's feathers bristled in alarm. "The feline toon wearing the green retro celluloid eyeshade. Looks like a 1920's bank teller."

As they approached they could hear him talking to a crowd of members of the public, all eager for their fifteen seconds of fame on camera. With the massive worldwide surge in media content, nobody expected a full fifteen minutes any more. "Right – I need extras to go round that corner and try to rescue the vehicle crew. It's up to you – you can improvise and ad lib all you want. You'll either do it or look as if you go violently insane at the sight."

A squirrel toon put his hand up. "I've never acted that part before. Don't I need to rehearse or something?"

Mister Hansen's expression was suddenly sad, before he hid it with a cheerful smile. "Don't worry – with what's around that corner – it'll come naturally."

"Totally hold it!" Shirley stepped in front of him. "You're sending Toons straight in off the street?"

Mister Hansen did a fine double-take, then sighed in relief. "Ensign McLoon! Glad you're here. I couldn't contact any of the… regular cast." He looked round nervously at the impatient 'extras' who were trying to peer round the corner. "They wouldn't last a minute with what's round there," he whispered in her ear-hole. "Deaf Mettle Foundry were covering for us, they ran into something… extreme. They defeated it but… now they need help."

Shirley nodded, taking a deep breath. This was her karma; where Plucky would have only have charged in if the cameras were rolling, she would go in regardless – knowing she had a better chance of getting the job done than any of the helpful 'extras' who probably would not get far. From what her aura could already detect, there was a major Psychiatric Hazard zone ahead – she reckoned the average Toon's mind might make it twenty yards. "I'm on it." She cast a wry glance at Mary. "If I like don't make it – it's been a good life, Mary. I'll see you another time round, 'kay?"

Mary nodded, her eyes wide. The irony of Shirley being the one taking the action-movie roles had not escaped her.

"All right." Shirley took a deep breath, concentrated a few seconds to centre her Chi energies, and cautiously edged through the barriers and round the corner.

It was the GRAVUS METALLICVS; she had expected to see Deaf Mettle Foundry's highly aggressive black spiky vehicle. From the traces left in the surroundings, it had almost met its match. There was the equivalent of a crater, or rather a splash for a hundred yards around it – except rather than smoking debris, the fading remains of a pulse of cuteness had hit the front armour and rebounded. Devastating cuteness was not just an idle phrase, she reflected – the total devastation radius had exceeded fifty yards, and only the grimmest structures were still standing at eighty.

_I can't see anyone inside. It's mondo shielded, but then it'd have to be_, her Aura strained to spot the auras of any survivors. _We'll have to get in there_.

"Ewwww…" Shirley winced, and summoned up a shield – where the damage done by technological ionising radiation doses were measured in Grays, this Kawaiionising radiation was measured in Pastels. Fortunately it was fading by the minute, but unshielded minds would not have lasted long exposed to it. "And walk, too. The local energy flows are too totally corrupted to levitate through." She waddled at her best speed towards the GRAVUS METALLICVS, feeling her ablative wardings burning off every second. In a minute she would either have to be inside the shielded vehicle or heading out to safety in a hurry; it was no place for a sane or healthy Toon to stand around.

"Hello! Anyone alive in there? Like, knock once for yes, twice for no." She paused, and added. "Three times if you're Undead." Pressing as close to the vehicle's spiky hull as she safely could, she recalled Plucky trying to impress her with his knowledge of Rock trivia – according to him, it was _'a new special laminate armour – a recursive laminate made up entirely of other laminates, repeated right down to QuanToon scale. And probably beyond._' She had told Plucky what a stupid idea that was – but right now, as her Aura looked hard at the material – she had an unpleasantly inharmonious feeling that somehow he just might have been right.

There was a knock – or rather a clang, from inside the vehicle as if someone had hit a heavy wrench against the outer plates. Ten seconds later, there came another one. Hearing a slight squeaking noise she looked up, to see a hatch wheel on top starting to turn. She scrambled up the rear armour – the front plates were still glowing a virulent pink – and knocked again. A periscope poked out and peered at her.

The hatch popped open, and an unfamiliar voice called "In, quick!" Shirley wasted no time in diving into the vehicle and slamming the rune-shielded hatch behind her. The air smelled of oil and ozone, but there was a strangely pleasant scent of sandalwood incense that she would not have expected at all.

"They're all out cold. Sugar-shock – with what they saw out there. The Cuteness." It was an unfamiliar voice from the back of the vehicle.

Shirley turned round, to see a white-feathered avian Toon. Her mind raced fast. She had met all of Deaf Mettle Foundry – except their agent, Mister DeVerre. She remembered Frank Sikosis mentioning him as someone who was far too disturbing to ever be filmed, and at the time had shuddered to imagine what that would take for a group who specialised in stage horror. Now she saw what the lead singer had meant.

"Like, harmonious kaftan," she looked at the tall loon male appraisingly. "It's a hand-made tie-dye?" She realised that extreme metal fans would find the idea of a Neo-Hippie in their iconic vehicle disturbing in the extreme.

"It is. I'm Drogo DeVerre. I'm pleased to meet you." The unknown member of the band extended a feather-hand – and Shirley reached over to shake it.

Their finger-feathers touched. An electrical thrill that had nothing to do with the broken wiring in the fighting compartment washed through them both, as if a door had suddenly opened that had been closed for lifetimes. "I know you!" Drogo gasped, his eyes wide. "King Gilgamesh's court, back in Ur of the Chaldes. The rainy season."

"Like total deja-vu." Shirley's mind whirled. "You were Court Magician. I was High Priestess of the goddess Ishtar. I remember. I remember everything. You died fighting a daemon." He had given his life to save the young King Gilgamesh and his family – after scores of incarnations it was suddenly as clear to Shirley as a flash-back. She could almost feel again on her bill the tears she had shed for him, as she remembered exactly why.

Drogo nodded, his eyes locked on Shirley. "You're still wearing that amulet I gave you. Have you passed it on through all your incarnations?"

Shirley blushed. "I only found it again last month. When I saw it, I knew. It totally had my name on it." She touched the amulet, remembering how it had repelled the astral vampire. "It's totally weird that it should show up now, after all this time."

"Things don't happen by accident," Drogo's face was grim. "Everything has a cosmic Plot Reason. It's up to us to interpret it."

"I've always said that. Major harmony-ville" Shirley felt her mouth go dry as she looked at him. She shook her head angrily, forcing her attentions to the present and away from a memory of two loons walking feather-hand in feather-hand on the starlit Euphrates banks six thousand years before. She looked round at the other members of Deaf Mettle Foundry, slumped in their chairs unconscious. Her aura detected they had only just survived, protected from the Cuteness of the thing they had defeated only by the rune-inscribed inner layer of the armour and their spiked black stage outfits. "Like ewww – you survived by like a feather's worth?"

"Yes." Drogo reached out to her, proffering a mind-meld.

Shirley accepted it, and shuddered at the assault the vehicle had endured. Eighty-thousand KiloChans of Kawaiionising radiation – in a focussed bolt. She dredged up one of Plucky's memories about the new turret having a front angle specified to be six percent more brutal that the previous model – and even that had barely been enough. "I don't get it – how did your front plate bounce that? It'd have gone through like twenty inches of High Dourness steel."

Drogo winked conspiratorially, and looked around as if to check nobody else was listening. "Top Secret. I had the upgrades built in Europe. It doesn't matter how many inches something like that could get through – or yards, or miles for that matter. There's not an inch left on the whole vehicle. It uses centimetres instead."

"Mondo metric!" Shirley sat back, impressed. Drogo was certainly the one who had drawn the extra-sinister runes on the vehicle, wardings that were still keeping them safe at the moment. He had evidently made good use of his incarnations to learn his art. "But now we'd better like split the scene. Can we move?"

"Yes. With two of us. I can drive, if you can keep up the wardings? They're written in blood on the spall liner," Drogo gestured to the inner layer of the armour that had held as a last-ditch defence. "Can you? We've got time expired medical issue blood to use. It's not as sinister as it might be, but it works."

Shirley's bill wrinkled for a second in distaste, but she recalled watching her Mother perform far more sinister rituals – and sinister was what was needed here, with the residual Cuteness outside still corrupting the remaining black spiky bits like acid rain corroding the stonework of a gothic building. "'Kay. But this really stresses my aura out, to the max." She had picked up a lot of her Mother's arts, though they were not the kind of thing she liked to dabble in.

"Yes. There's two of you in there. I can see that now." Drogo smiled, and sketched a bow to the glowing blue aura. "Pleased to meet you. I don't think we've met before."

Shirley blinked in confusion, even as she began to retouch the extra-sinister runes that were beginning to fade. _My aura… she's as much me as my feathers are. Isn't she?_ While she thought, her glowing energy form looked Drogo up and down with obvious approval_. She'd have reincarnated alongside me every time._ _So why is it I don't remember her from back then? _She had never doubted that her aura had been there all along, incarnation after incarnation – but until the past months she had never given it much thought, no more than most people would exactly remember whether or not they always had a shadow.

Drogo slid into the driver's seat, gently easing the unconscious band member 'Sparks' aside and firing up the engines. "Next stop, the cleaner bits of Acme Acres."

"You managed to send back – what tried to gate-crash our Universe?" Shirley put the finishing touches to an Aleph-class Sinister Rune, trying not to gag at the scent of blood on her paintbrush. She had learned that 'need to know' was in some circumstances a survival trait; she knew exactly many Sanity Points she had to spare. There really was such a thing as too much information, when it came at such a price.

"Yes." Drogo held the GRAVUS METALLICVS in fifteenth gear as they ground over the rubble. "It wasn't easy. They weren't from a place where Toon Physics works – their bodies weren't even made of chromoplasm. Their Stuffed Physics uses things like the Weak and Strong Cuddly Forces – that doesn't even exist here except when they bring their reality with them."

"Like, total H.P. Lovecraft-ville." Shirley tried not to think too much about that and looked instead at the sinister runes, as if earthing a dangerous static charge. "Hey! We're out of the devastated zone. Should be safe to open up."

"Yes…" Drogo checked the instruments. "Stay clear of the radiation off the front plates, they're still glowing ultra-pastel. About as cute as a Hello-Kitty convention." He reached up and popped the drummer's hatch, slipping out effortlessly like a trained athlete.

Shirley watched him move for a second, her eyes on his tail-feathers. _There's someone with mind and body in total harmony_, her aura commented admiringly. _Unlike some we could mention_.

Shirley shushed her, though she did remember all too clearly Plucky turning up at one of her exercise groups dressed in eye-patch, fake hook and cutlass – having misheard and thought she had told him she was deeply into Pirates. That had been embarrassing; her Pilates instructor had never quite forgiven her.

"Fresh air at last. Mondo cool…" Shirley followed Drogo out, closing the rune-shielded hatch behind her, mindful of the rest of the band still unconscious and vulnerable within. She took a deep breath of the afternoon air. It was strange the way one thing led to another. She suddenly recalled how the scheme to make Perfecto Prep carbon-zero had fortunately been blocked by one of Mary Melody's whistle-blowing investigations – fortunate in that one of their graduates owned an industrial plant producing huge quantities of crude sulphur as a waste product, and Perfecto's scheme had been to burn that for heating and power instead.

_It really would have been zero-carbon, they had that bit right_, her Aura commented snidely. Shirley cast her an annoyed glance. Since returning that June with Plucky from the astral plane, her Aura had not been the same, as if a taste of freedom had left it with independent ideas.

"And another daring rescue by Shirley McLoon, Acme Acres' all-action avian!" Mary walked forwards, her video camera running and a broad grin on her face. "Ms McLoon – rising young actress and supporting video star of neo-Undeath-metal group Deaf Mettle Foundry. Could you introduce me to your comrade?" She panned the camera over Drogo DeVere, who had grabbed a shovel lashed to the back of the vehicle and was throwing oil-stained mud over the front plates in an attempt to shield the general public from the corrupted material.

"Like, fer sure. This is the one member of Deaf Mettle Foundry they never show in public, Mister DeVere." Shirley cast Drogo a significant look.

"Oh." Mary had learned in her job not to show surprise outwardly, but her gaze lingered on the kaftan-wearing loon. "Pleased to meet you. You work backstage with the band?"

"I'm their songwriter." Drogo admitted. "But we'd better get them out – they were knocked out by the impact."

"You've got help coming in." Mary pointed to where four more of Unit Four Plus Two were getting off the bus. "Three buzzards and a black and white canine."

"That's Corporal Barnes. Major negative vibes incoming," Shirley felt her aura diving into her physical body like a soldier into a foxhole as she spotted the border collie. "He's like a walking mallet to any cosmic powers – and he's the only like uptight military-head in the team." Barnes had spent much of his time petitioning Colonel Fenix to put together a proper training course complete with pack-drill and parades. "He's major into route-marches and pack drill like Buster loves baseball. If Colonel Fenix wants to reward him, he gives him six hours of bayonet drill. Way uncool."

Whatever his faults, the border collie proved as good an organiser as most of his breed, and after a second's planning he crisply marshalled his buzzard team to haul the unconscious members of Deaf Mettle Foundry out of their vehicle and into the fresh air. Drogo revived them with stripped-down, amped-up Grindcore tracks played loud over emergency speakers. Shirley had been about to offer her usual emergency crystal healing or aromatherapy, but looking at the band's protectively black spiky suits she realised it would not have harmonised well with their style.

"Mister DeVere. You've known him before," Mary murmured, watching Shirley's eyes following the male loon's work. "And I mean, known him. I can tell. The way you look at him. The way you walked side by side, even."

Shirley blushed. "It was like, a mondo long time ago – in a past incarnation, you know? It's massively rare people meet up and remember each other this way. The chances of us both turning up again like this are – plain silly." She paused. "Plucky never really believes me about my past lives. He'd ask why people remember being Egyptian Pharaohs, Pirate Queens and junk, but never being most of the population of the planet - Indian or Chinese peasants who starved to death or died of Toonpox. So many did."

Mary winced. "Who'd want to remember a thing like that?"

Shirley cast her a grateful smile. "Like, totally."

"Then, Plucky believes all Pro wrestling matches are fought for real, so he can't talk about unbelievable." Mary filmed the band being revived, coming out of cuteness-induced sugar shock. "This'll make good footage, if they'll let me use it."

"I hope so. Colonel Fenix, he's a good toon." Shirley's mind flashed back to the nest her Mother was building. It was a hopeless violation of the Plot Codes that Melicent McLoon could just be carrying an egg like that, without any surrounding melodrama or the prospect of wedding bells – but Melicent had many strange powers and this was one Shirley had not seen before.

_It happened all right, but we didn't see it – that's how we got here_, her aura commented snidely. _This time round Mother didn't even need the excuse of an_ _Archies' gig._ _Every time she plays that Archies' track 'Sugar Sugar', you can see she remembers. As if we weren't reminder enough_. Shirley and her aura both batted away the unasked-for association that came to mind – Angelina Angelique's parents by her account had for their romantic tune the tender ballad '_Holocaust in your head' _ as croonedby Extreme Noise Terror.

Shirley mentally shushed her. "There's the next bus – let's get on it. That canine Corporal like creeps my aura out. He's taken charge of the situation – that's his big thing." She waved shyly to Drogo DeVere, and gasped. "Drogo! He's a major Talent too! He just mentally contacted me. He said – like, the Ancient Chaldean for 'au revoir'. I've not heard that in – totally ages."

"I'm sure you'll meet again," Mary waved down the bus, and they stepped onto it. "It's what they used to say – the prophecies are all coming together. Things don't just happen for no reason." She winked, and busied herself with editing her video footage as the bus pulled out.

_She's right. I knew I'd seen him in our visions. More recently than in Ur Of The Chaldes_, her aura commented. _When we were looking at futures, back in Spring Break. You looked at our futures on timelines where we didn't end up with Plucky_.

_Like, so?_ Shirley blinked mentally.

_Like, this._ Exactly how she saw the myriad possibilities unfolding in her visions was always hard to put into words. She had once described it to Plucky in terms he knew – one of his uncool military flight simulators had a scrolling navigational map that unrolled as you flew – but never showed anywhere outside achievable range with speed, fuel and altitude factored in. This was like it in a broader way; decisions steered her destiny one way or another across the map of possibilities.

_This one. A timeline where you let Plucky go. He ended up with Maria Mandarin, and you ended up with Drogo. Everyone turned out very happy with the plot._ Her aura pointed to one of the myriad possibilities. It was only a memory; her current future was no longer pointing that way, and it had long since slipped out of range.

Shirley blinked. She remembered looking at that future and seeing a handsome loon – the world was full of fine-feathered fowls and back then she had not recognised just who Drogo really was. _Well, fer sure. But that timeline is totally over_. Some of the alternate possibilities she had once viewed were exceedingly Alternative, for want of a better word – there was a timeline where on his first Summer Vacation from Acme Loo, Buster Bunny had married three Southern Belles – powerful and ravenous alligator girls whose ancestry had already swallowed some mammal chromoplasm to judge by their non-reptillian figures and head-fur.

Her aura snickered, peeking at Shirley's thoughts. _That version of Buster spends his whole time persuading them he can give them more fun than he'd make as one meal of Creole-style rabbit stew. And he has – he's filled three nests full of young gator-bunnies by them. Real quadruple threats - sharp wits, tunnelling skills, rabbit speed and carnivorous appetites… Louisiana's going to be a radically dangerous place on that timeline when they get out of the nest and go hunting_.

_Ewww…_ Shirley shook her head angrily. _That timeline is over, out of range. It'll never happen now. Same as anything with me and Drogo. Since Plucky and me got our nest_.

Her aura nodded, unconvinced. She looked out at the traffic signs. The last four turnoffs had all been signed to the Acme Bowl. They had not taken any of them – but there were more turnoffs coming up, and there was always more than one way to get where you were going.

* * *

"Ah. Ms Melody. We've not met since that time your friends managed to rupture a hole in existence with that kiloToon-yield Plot Device – but I've seen a few of your interviews on K-ACME TV." Half an hour later they had arrived at the McLoon household and Colonel Fenix had shown them in to his temporary office, the old military trailer cunningly disguised as a surplus military trailer.

Mary smiled, taking the offered seat. "Shirley's told me a lot about what you do, Colonel. You want to know about that chocolate bar company I interviewed last month?"

"Mmm. We're interested in these." Hal gestured to the pile of Luxovice Lightweight bars on the shelf. "In one way, they really are what they say. Zero fat. Zero calorie. No chemical test will show anything wrong with them. But eat one and you give something out there your aura's phone number, so to speak."

Mary winced. "Yes. Shirley said. And when it gets hungry, it dials for takeout. And you're on the menu."

"Quite. We don't know just how its victims are chosen, but everyone drained dry was snacking on these diet bars." Hal picked up a wrapped bar cautiously. "This Resorblus Inc – it's a company that doesn't exist. There's seven distributors for them all round the country, but they don't make the candy – and even they don't know who does."

Mary Melody looked at the phoenix, her eyes wide. "But… there must be paperwork … deliveries – traffic in and out. The bars can't just appear in their warehouse!"

"That's like wierdsville, Mary, because they totally did. As far as anyone there remembers." Shirley nodded significantly. "The toons in those companies spreading it, someone did an uncool erasing job on their minds. They just didn't think about it. They've always been handling Luxovice Lightweight bars – that's what they think. Even though it only started appearing last month."

"We've done the usual thing, tracing the money. The distributors get it all. This isn't about making money for Resorblus, whoever or whatever they may be." Hal steepled his feather-fingers together, and looked keenly at Mary. "You're the best lead we have. I'd be interested in what you can tell me about that interview."

* * *

"Interesting." Half an hour later, Hal waved Mary farewell and sat down to collect his thoughts. Melicent McLoon had been following through her growing mental link with him, and walked into the trailer. "So. She interviewed a rabbit. Adult, nondescript, just like all the rabbits you see on the street and don't look twice at." Babs and Buster were far from nondescript, but not just anyone qualified for Acme Looniversity. "She asked all the right questions for her interview, but nothing that gets us any further."

"Hardly amazing." Melicent pointed out. "Though he 'neither confirmed or denied' the raw materials really are recycled Styrofoam. And it's a fact there's no law banning raw ingredients like that, just as long as the finished product's safe."

"A rabbit really isn't what I expected," Hal closed his eyes. "But they make good front Toons. Who'd suspect them?"

"Mary would have, if she'd tried for a second interview. All those contact details are bogus. She's getting famous as an honest journalist. If I wanted to advertise something, I'd try and convince her myself." Melicent winced slightly. "I just wish she hadn't eaten all those free samples he gave her."

"Millions do, but only a few get drained dry. She should be as safe as anyone." Hal rose, and his beak winced slightly. "All the same – I think some of us should keep a very careful watch over Ms Mary Melody."

* * *

Not far off in Acme Acres, Calamity Coyote and Marcia Martian were keeping an eye on Elmyra's business – in more ways than one. There was a water tower on top of a building overlooking Elmyra's home, and while Calamity surveyed the area Marcia floated in the cool water. A foam of bubbles surrounded her, courtesy of an ingenious device Calamity had put together involving a carbon dioxide cylinder and five aquarium aereators.

"Query," Marcia scratched her head, having picked up the meme from the Earth Toons "Exactly why are folk in Authority complaining about Elmyra and George? It is their business and nobody else's."

_It's a trend-setting thing_, Calamity's sign read. _We're Acme Looniversity graduates, and one day we'll be famous ones. People look to film stars and celebrities for leadership_.

"I didn't know THAT was how your Earth government worked." Marcia's eyes narrowed in concentration despite her alien biology; some things really were universal.

The coyote shrugged. _Well, when you look at our politicians, you can't say you'd want to model yourself on them. _He winced slightly, having heard from Rhubella that Perfecto had quite the opposite approach, and had Ethics and Philosophy classes admiringly studying the tactics and management skills of Vlad "The Impaler" Tepes, Ivan the Terrible and Genghiz Khan. _Human Toons have always been a special case – if say, Fifi had married Hampton, nobody would have complained_. He paused. _In the Opposition's 'Beauty and the beast' film, both had to end up as humans before the critics could approve it._

"Or both could have ended up as furred Toons, that'd pass too. That's what Professor Le Pew said. And he should know, he married outside his species." Marcia nodded thoughtfully.

She looked at the hard-working coyote, and her unseen face invisibly smiled as she adjusted the aereators on her five special places. Despite his outlandish vertebrate biology, there was much that she approved of. His cold, wet nose was nice to nuzzle against – and its damp-sponge texture reminded her of when she had been a Type 5B, many Martian years ago. Type 5 Martians were an evolutionary option specified by the harsh conditions of her homeworld – Type 1 and 3 reproduced by releasing pollen-like spores that could be blowing in the wind for centuries. Where Earth species needed a certain minimum population to survive without inbreeding, on Mars things were better geared to recovering from almost total extinction. As a Type 5B her sponge-like parts had absorbed the chromoplasm of untold Type 1 and 3, like an exposed petri dish ready to grow bacteria from dust falling on it. She had enough stored chromoplasm to repopulate Mars all on her own if she had to, as soon as she became a Type Eight. "You Earth-types make everything so complicated. Considering your life-cycles are so… very simple." She bent over and kissed the coyote's nose.

Calamity blushed. _It's complicated enough for us. Look, here._ He tapped the screen of his pocket supercomputer. _This Eleanor Vandensnaffel, of the League of Responsible Cartoons. She's caused a dozen couples to break up. Ruined dozens more who refused to quit. She can't stop Elmyra marrying George one day, but she can wreck their careers. That makes me so mad._ The coyote's hackles raised, and his muzzle crested. A comic Toon he might be, but he was a carnivore without doubt. _Biting her or dropping a ballistic anvil from high orbit wouldn't help, though – even if it'd feel good_.

"I don't think she'd taste good." Marcia said. "And probably high cholesterol." Her own senses seemed to be getting keener as her form metamorphosed – and the one scent she was keenly aware of was that of other Martians – or more accurately, the complete lack of them. Even her Uncle Marvin was currently off-planet, and her metabolism was telling her she was the sole survivor of some catastrophe, and what she ought to start doing about that. It had been a long time since she had been exposed to Queen Tirranee's scent, the Type Eight suppressing the final development of every other Martian within range just by her very existence. She shook her head, concentrating on the problems in front of them. "So, what are we going to do?"

Calamity stood deep in thought. _Something Mary said about when she met Cola Black. It's like we've got all the components, but just have to put them together_. He paced round the water tank nervously, special-effects steam rising from his overclocked intellect.

Marcia playfully splashed cold water over his ears. She remembered how Plucky would react to Calamity explaining the fine details of QuanToon Physics to him – generally a water bucket would be handy when the green mallard's head caught light. "Brains beat brawn, daddy-o – and sounds like someone's in for a beating the Plot Balance says they deserve!"

* * *

Night was falling over Lake Acme, the silhouette of Mount Acme standing tall against clear skies innocent of jet contrails or urban skyglow. The view would have been better appreciated by two mallards if they were not going to bed hungry.

"Well, we've got shellfish. Raw like sushi. And there's no pollution, so they should be safe uncooked," Plucky looked down at the meagre pile of freshwater clams and water-snails he had gathered while Margot guarded the nest. He winced slightly. "That organic rice cake we had for breakfast – that might the last proper food we'll ever see. If you can call it proper."

"With shellfish at least, we won't starve. Until Winter comes, at least," Margot said firmly. "Tomorrow, we both go fishing. It'll take two of us working to keep us fed. Look – I can carry the eggs like this." She patted her sun-dress that she had sacrificed as a makeshift sling such as she had seen Native girls using in National Geographic. She hefted one of the four spears she had made that day, two sharp, barbed slender models and two heftier ones. "The light ones are for fish, the heavy ones – for other things. Some of them might have a try at hunting us."

Plucky gulped. "Oh. Right. Bears. Wolves. Mountain Lions." His eyes went wide in alarm. "Maybe direwolves, sabre-toothed tigers."

"Maybe, yes." Margot stroked one of the heavy-duty spears thoughtfully. "We don't know how far back in time we've gone. Toon Physics wasn't on the timetable at Perfecto – did they teach you anything we could use to find out?"

Plucky's green head-feathers wrinkled in concentration; it had never been his favourite subject and he had cribbed most of his notes from Calamity Coyote. He recalled the fundamental constants of such physics, such as Plank Length – the IEEE had defined it as six feet, the minimum effective length of a plank swung around unexpectedly against a stooge in the classic slapstick gag. "Toons can't go back further than Plank Time, the instant of the creation of Comedy – but Shirley remembers an incarnation she was a velociraptor, so that's way back." He scratched his head. According to Professor Wile-E Coyote, slapstick had been part of the very early Tooniverse, to judge by the signatures on Comic Rays detected from high-energy gags in distant galaxies. "I didn't know they even had actual planks back then – but they must have."

"Maybe it wasn't a sawn plank – just a plain branch being brought back to build the nest - if it's the gag rather than the prop that matters." Margot opened a clam with a knife ground down from a broken DVD of '_Ilse, She-wolf of the SS_' that she rather doubted Plucky had ever shown to Shirley. She told herself that the raw clam was an oyster served in an exclusive restaurant, and swallowed the contents. "Hmm. Needs lemon, and maybe Tabasco. Though I'd better stop thinking like that. No lemon trees, no tabasco chillies growing round here either." She opened and shared out the rest of the shellfish, and for a few minutes they ate in silence.

Plucky looked up at Margot, relaxed on the nest. He blinked. "You really think we're stuck here forever?" The prospect of never watching TV or tasting pizza again was a terrifying one.

Margot sighed. "I'm facing facts. Doesn't matter that I don't like the idea of being Miss Cave-mallard, Six Million Years BC. I miss my FoulPlay Coffee in the morning. The nearest coffee is growing on a bush somewhere in Ethiopia."

"Maybe there's some Native American jackrabbits?" Plucky said hopefully "If Toon shticks are working already we might get them to burrow there and pick some? Before Shirley gets us back."

"I wouldn't recognise the plant if I saw it. Would you? But – face facts, Plucky. Why should she want to rescue us? You and Shirley are separated. She sent us here. Her decision." Margot held his gaze.

Plucky looked as if he was about to argue – then his expression changed. He looked around at the primordial landscape. There was not even a sniff of the famous primordial soup he had expected to be available. "I guess so."

"A few thousand years apart and no return ticket, I call that pretty well separated. Looks like this is the place she wanted us to be," Margot said.

"So what do we do?" Plucky's eyes were bleak as his gaze wandered over the primitive spears, their tips bound with copper wire from what had been his Numbmindo console – the very latest model, one he had bought for himself anticipating celebrating coming top of the class at Acme Loo. The only electrical power source in this landscape was the occasional lightning bolt, and he suspected that might do his games console more harm than good.

Margot shrugged. "Stay alive. What else? When the eggs hatch, keep the chicks alive. I think that'll take all our efforts. Yours and mine together."

"You'd stay and help look after them?" Plucky looked down at the eggs in the fabric that Margot had sacrificed her outfit to make. She was in nothing but her bare feathers, though as fully 'concealed' as Fifi had usually been seen in the streets of the Acme Acres that someday would be two miles down the road – a road that also was a thing of the future.

Margot's eyes locked onto his. "And where else would I go? There is nowhere out there. This hut's maybe the nearest thing to a five-star hotel on the planet. And – if there are locals out there, Native buffalo, wolves or coyotes say – we won't have much in common. A little difficult making small-talk if I don't speak Ancient Chippewa. Don't you think?" She relaxed in more comfort than Plucky had had recently; between fashioning improvised spears that day she had put in a lot of minor repairs to the nest. Her shed purple feathers now mixed with those of Plucky, while beneath them the white loon feathers lay like a layer of archaeology already buried by time.

There was a silence. The sunset was turning the Spring skies to reddish gold; Margot realised this was the time of day she would normally have planned her evening somewhere up-market and entertaining. She drew a deep breath, and smiled. Up-market it was not, but this world was not without things to look forward to. As her grand-mother had sometimes said, before television and radio Toons had to make their own entertainment. "Oh, Plucky…" she asked in a small voice as she relaxed, lying back in the opposite corner of the nest, looking at the mallard male. There was the quiet pop of a Toon unconcealing. "I've not got a fortune awaiting me, on this timeline. All I have to give – is what you see. If you're interested."

Plucky's eyes bulged in a Wild Take. "M…Margot?" His gaze locked on her as if his eyeballs were glued to her figure – a not uncommon Toon shtick.

Margot sighed. "This isn't quite the way I'd planned things. But it looks like it's just you and me, Plucky. If there's anything you like the look of…" She snickered, remembering the time they had raced each other to a bridge that this world had not built yet. "Bring it on, Acme."

There was a second pop of an unconcealing Toon. Margot's eyes went wide in turn at the view. She smiled. Shirley must have been more into spiritual than physical achievements, to ever abandon this drake. "I think getting stuck here… is going to have its compensations."

* * *

The morning sun shone bright through unpolluted skies. A small plume of grey wood-smoke rose above a temporary camp on the shores of Lake Acme. It had taken a week, but between their memories of Discovery Channel and National Geographic articles, two mallards had worked out how to make a more-or-less effective fish trap by driving willow poles into the sandy shallows at the exit of the lake. Now they were eating at least one meal a day.

"Fish is ready!" Margot called out, poking the trout with a peeled green twig and watching the juices running clear.

"Ready! Oh boy." Plucky had been standing poised with a fish-spear over the trap, careful not to let his shadow fall over the water. That had been another lesson that had cost them a few meals at first. He waddled over and carefully laid the spear down within reach. They had not run into any large predators yet, but the first time could be the last if they were caught by surprise.

Margot took the spitted trout from its place above the glowing coals, and divided it up. "Some for you, some for me." Hunger really was the best spice, she reflected – since mealtimes had become a matter of luck and skill she certainly appreciated them more.

Just at that second there came a quiet cracking. Nothing louder than the crackling of a piece of cellophane, but it was where it was coming from that had them both springing to alert – the sun-dress now padded with dry moss, that held two large eggs.

"They're hatching! They're hatching! Call the hospital – someone boil up lots of hot water! Towels! We need big clean towels!" Plucky shouted, running round in small panic-stricken circles as every deeply ingrained cliché reaction suddenly triggered in him.

Margot smiled, watching him for a few seconds. She gently unwrapped the fabric to let the warm sunlight shine on the eggs. One had already shed a triangular piece of shell, and the other had a crack showing. "They just decided to show up for lunchtime, is all. Sit down, Plucky. Eat your fish. They'll come out when they're ready." She fished for her T-pad and looked critically at the battery level – about ten minutes of charge remained. _Well enough_, she nodded silently as she went to camera mode and captured the scene for posterity. Whether anyone would ever turn up with a spare battery and get to see the footage was another story.

As they watched, the eggs hatched. In ten minutes two pure white loon chicks were blinking in the sunlight, their flat bills gleaming like polished golden amber. Margot looked them over, appraisingly_. Well. No trace of green mallard in these. I thought so. Very clever to have them take after her entirely. Perhaps she had a psychic way of scrubbing all signs of the real father from their chromoplasm._ By Plucky's account, Shirley had said almost nothing about the eggs – Margot recalled her Perfecto Ethics classes and a quote from the Spanish philosopher and leader Francisco Franco – "_we are the slaves of what we have said, but the masters of our silences_."

"At last – my sons are here – well, one of them's sure to be a boy." Plucky looked from one chick to the other hopefully. It seemed unlikely he could ever take them to the park or the American Football matches as most fathers in Acme Acres did, but certainly they could spend a lot of quality time together fishing. "Which one is it?"

Margot held his gaze steady. "Congratulations. You've a fine, healthy-looking pair of daughters."

"Daughters? Both? But… but… it can't be. It can't be!" Plucky went rigid in shock, keeled over and fell flat on his back in a classic dead faint. Broad webbed feet vibrated like tuning-forks.

Margot looked at him fondly. She gathered the chicks to her, and two sets of bright eyes looked up into hers for the first time. A feeling she had never imagined passed through her as the new-hatched chicks bonded with her. This went both ways, she realised. "Oh my. So this is what it's like. Sorry, Shirley – whatever happens, it's too late now. And they really did arrive for lunchtime." She stroked the chicks' still damp white feathers, and smiled. _At least Plucky won't have to throw up his breakfast for these two. I can manage. The timing turned out just right though I hadn't had anything so – practical in mind._

She remembered one of Babs Bunny's favourite lines, as she gently let them explore her mammalian heritage. It was a good thing there had been only two eggs in the clutch, when there might have been half a dozen. "Well, isn't THAT convenient?"

End Chapter Ten


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

The scene was the brand-new burrow that Babs and Buster had dug together in rabbit tradition, two miles further from Acme Acres and that much deeper into in the forest than Buster's old home. As Buster had pointed out with a slight (but very brief) twinge of sadness, they were no longer having to dash into class every morning.

"Right! Let's sum up just what the situation is." With Buster, George and Elmyra as her audience Babs spun-changed into a historical General's costume. She pulled a large blank presentation pad and easel from her Hammerspace pocket, and began to doodle. "The enemy forces – here." She drew a rapid and unflattering portrait of Ms Eleanor Vandensnaffel on one side of the sheet, with a vague and ill-defined Committee like a fog-bank behind her. "Commencing assault on friendly lines – here." A cheerful doodle of George and Elmyra standing hand in paw was soon on the other side of the paper. "And the main point of attack – these punks' schwerpunkt – is here." A caricature of Acme Looniversity with a giant symbolic anvil hanging threateningly over it was soon in the centre of the page.

Buster looked on, relaxed. "You're not going to just – move an anvil a little to the left and let it drop on the Committee?" he suggested.

Babs tapped at her jet-black riding-breeches with her General's baton. "Tempting. Very, very tempting. But no. Committees are like that Hydra you fought in Adventure Day 601 class, remember? Cut off one head and the rest just grow back. Hitting with large heavy objects, same effect." She hesitated, tapping her chisel teeth with the baton. "Though it would be fun."

"So, we need to find the body – it works for hydras, anyway." Buster paused, reminiscing. "That was a great show we did, Jason Bunny and the Argo-Toons. But it'd have been kind of nearer the original if you'd been the one tied to the rocks waiting to be sacrificed, not me."

His pink-furred wife snickered, pushing her black peaked cap up at a jaunty angle. "Well, blue-boy, this is the twenty-first century! Besides – you looked good in your bare fur."

"Hey!" Buster protested "I had my gloves on all the time – and sandals! Which is more than Professor Bugs generally wears. The sandals were authentic, too. Argonaut-surplus stock."

"Thinking of Professor Bugs… like he says, rabbits have to use their brains, not their muscles." Babs blushed, casting a sidelong glance at George, the big lepine staring at Elmyra enraptured with his mouth wide open "present company excepted, of course." She strode up and down, her polished jackboots squeaking slightly as she thought hard. "We need an inside angle. And how do we need to do it? No way but..." she wriggled her ears invitingly. Buster rose and stood next to her, posed in mirror symmetry.

"Babs and Buster style!" That pair chorused, bumping tails.

"We need a disguise… something with amazing powers. So we can…" Babs broke off, considering the matter.

"Amaze people?" Buster suggested, one ear dipped quizzically.

Babs grinned. "I'd go in as Wonder-Bunny, but that costume needs cleaning. As you well know." She winked to Elmyra. "Wonder-bunny. Lots of amazing powers but she can't walk past a simple backyard washing line without getting tangled in it and losing her abilities, just in time for a handsome villain to take advantage. All in the best possible taste and for genuine plot reasons, of course." She sighed, a martyred expression on her face. "My poor cotton-tail… it was left like a soaked dish-rag. It took ages to clean and dry."

"If Wonder-Bunny ever came out and admitted she really likes that kind of thing, bang goes her Comics Code Approval ™," Buster looked up at the burrow ceiling innocently. "And here's everyone thinking she just had a perfectly practical reason for all those lasso tricks."

"So, she's out – till I get that costume dry-cleaned. And all the other super-characters Warner Brothers has the rights to are busy having their franchises rebooted." Babs pondered.

"All the A-list are. There's a whole gang that nobody ever heard of." Buster pointed out. "Usually for good reasons."

Babs nodded. "Like that one Hampton played for laughs in the third-year. How did the lyrics go? Oh, yeah," She sang:

"_Spidey-ham, spidey-ham, can't do anything a spidey can_

_Can't spin a web, any size, can't catch crooks, he just eats flies…"_

"Bleah." She stuck her pink tongue out in disgust. "Definitely not that one. But what about…" Babs spin-changed into an unfamiliar spandex outfit complete with a paw full of red star-shaped shurikens. "All quail before the might of Captainette Glorious Federated States of Western Molvania (Formerly Democratic People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Molvanian Federation)! Fighting for Truth, Justice and the Righteous Way of the [Glorious Federated States of Western Molvania (Formerly Democratic People's Soviet Socialist Republic of Molvanian Federation)]!" She frowned. "Bit of a mouthful. By the time I've said all that, the bad guys are long gone."

"Plus she only gets her powers kicking in after her late-evening snack. A bit of a downer," Buster agreed.

"That's a supper-heroine for you. How about this? Wacky-land's own crazed cowboys? Cow-bunnies, I mean." Babs spun out of her spandex uniform and reappeared in classical Western outfit, complete with guitar. "_Dey ride, dey ride, de ranged all day, dey ride, dey ride, deranged_…" she sang and strummed cheerfully. (Since Gogo Dodo had left for Japan, the Surrealist side of town had been ruled by a pretty Sphinx girl and three wild lion males who she had liberated from a circus. Things were managed more discreetly than many Toons expected who had expected it to de-evolve into Tacky-Land. As Sphinxie often said, she had her pride.)

"I think that's "de range"… but around here? You were maybe right first time." Buster stood for a moment in thought. "But how about… it's a while since the VanderBunnys got any screen time."

"Of course! Bertram and Buffy VanderBunny… now related. Really." Babs spun again and reappeared in a stylish, expensive-looking skirt-suit. She stood poised with Buster, hand in paw as he changed into a yachting blazer and cap emblazoned with the crest of an exclusive BosToon sailing club that would make even a Perfecto graduate look twice – once in admiration and again in envy. Their wedding rings sparkled, Buster appearing un-gloved for a change. She snickered. "The perfect snobby pair to promote same-species family values." She looked down admiring her old golden ring; even before they had married as Babs and Buster, the VanderBunnys had been a married pair. It had been a role she loved practicing as a full dress-rehearsal for the real thing.

"I was wondering when we'd give this pair an airing," Buster mused, lounging nonchalantly. "They've served us well."

"As long as you can keep to the script." Babs winked at Elmyra. "You weren't there in rehearsals for that scene we were planning our first Summer holiday… Buster bloopered. He only had to sing '_I will slack off every second that I can _'. That's not what he came out with." She cast her buck a knowing wink. "We could believe his version, though. Healthy young 'jack' rabbit buck and all that. With a beautiful pink-furred doe to dream about." She posed seductively.

The blue buck's ear twitched in irritation. "I meant to say 'slack' off! Even if that's not what came out. They changed it to 'goof off' in the final edit anyway."

"Good thing we weren't going out live on air – or goodbye forever to our U rating. Oh, those blooper reels…" Babs sighed in happy reminiscence.

"You should know, former Miss Freudian slip fashion model of the week, you were on most of them" Buster gently tweaked his wife's cottontail. "I bet you pretty much wore out a Freudian patterned slip every season. You certainly got them dirty enough to need a lot of washing."

Babs put on a haughty air. "Why, Buster Bunny. When a distinguished lady talks about her rabbit hole – of course she's referring to traditional architecture. That's where we come from."

Elmyra scratched her head, puzzled. "I thought magicians pulled bunnies out of top hats?"

Babs cast her and George a sly glance. "You really DID sleep through that biology class. Never mind, you two'll find out where bunnies come from. And you won't need a top hat."

Elmyra's eyes went wide. Suddenly she giggled. "Oh. I get it now."

"Get it? I'll bet you do. I bet you do. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more." Babs quoted happily. "The problem is, this Eleanor Vandensnaffel doesn't appreciate the idea. Since she lost her boyfriend to a rabbit doe, she's been down on the idea ever since."

"That boyfriend, he must have been a human of rare taste and distinction," Buster mused. "They do exist. Jessica Rabbit, for starters."

"And Mary Melody, of course, even if she's aiming to be Mrs. My Not-so-Little and Not-exactly-a Pony. She's got her own axe to grind… but there's enough bulk on Ms Vandensnaffel for us all to carve a piece or two. Now, what Mary told us about Coal Black and what souvenirs she's got… that's interesting. I feel a Cunning Plan coming on."

"Take two aspirins and a tongue depressor – better still, a tongue elater – and call me in the morning." Buster demonstrated his spin-change technique, suddenly attired as a white-coated doctor specialising in bedside manners. "You can call me sweetheart."

Babs sighed happily. "Right. Now – we've set the stage – set the theatre – it's time to operate!"

Two spin-change blurs resolved once more as the Vanderbunnys. They held hands, posed in mirror sync, and chorused once more "Babs and Buster style!"

* * *

Back in a very different Acme Acres, the sun was beating down on a riverbank where two mallards stood poised over the shallows with fish-spears.

"Gotcha!" Margot spotted a curving shadow and stabbed down. The serrated metal point ground on a rock from thin metal that once had been part of a Numbmindo games console skewered the fish neatly. She pulled it out, and added it to the three that were already on her copper-wire belt. She was walking around unconcealed these days – there was nobody but Plucky to see her, and she relished the feel of the sunshine on her feathers. All her feathers. Besides, there were two small hungry bills to feed and her surviving clothes only got in the way.

"That'll do for lunch." Plucky nodded back towards the temporary reed shelter on the bank where the hatchlings lay asleep in the shade. "Woo-hoo! We're really nailing this fishing business. Enough for everyone and twenty pounds of smoked fillets back at the hut."

"Mmm." Margot busied herself blowing the camp fire embers back to life. "Makes you count your blessings. If Shirley had been an Emperor Penguin, not a Loon… you'd be 'in the wild' on the Antarctic ice shelf, balancing eggs on your feet and finding out just how cold duck feet really can get."

Plucky shivered at the idea. He looked over the two fledglings, his eyes softening. "It's been a week. Their first week. We have to name them. I didn't have any girl's names thought up. Shirley was going to handle all that."

"You've finally realised we're stuck here." Margot relaxed in the shade.

Plucky nodded. "I had to someday. But I had to give it time first. We might have been rescued." He flinched, remembering the Disaster Films 401 class in his fourth year. Having an improvised plotline involving being one of a party stuck in a lift in an abandoned mineshaft, the question of who to eat first would have arisen sometime. That was reasonable enough, surely. But he privately admitted that six minutes into being trapped had perhaps been a little hasty, even for him. From the one bite he had managed before being decisively sat on by the rest of the party, Fowlmouth really did taste exactly like chicken.

"Well, it's up to you to name them. They're not mine." _They're not yours either, according to Shirley,_ Margot thought wryly. _And she should know._ _Leaving him holding the hatchlings five thousand years away, means never having to say you're sorry_.

"We should choose the names between us. They're part of you now, sort of. You're… feeding them." His eyes bulged at the thought. Margot's always stunning figure had grown several sizes, and from her expression when the hatchlings suckled she had found a new hobby she was greatly enjoying. The fact that she had originally planned the change purely for entertainment value was mind-boggling to the green mallard.

Margot looked him in the eyes. "Plucky Duck. Are you asking me to carry on doing that – all of us as a family? You want to make an honest woman of me?" She winked. "That's a big job for anyone to take on. Still, it's me or – maybe there are locals migrating through here in Autumn." She quietly crooned – "_If I was the only girl in the world, and you were the only boy..."_

Plucky was silent. "Shirley wouldn't marry me even when I begged her to. She wouldn't even stay with me. She dumped me thousands of years into the past, without even a picnic hamper. It's like being on a desert island, but worse – there's no ship out there to be rescued by."

_Smart girl, Shirley. Even stuck here I wouldn't be – investing – in just anyone's chicks. Good chromoplasm in these. And I'm glad they weren't born with sharp beaks, only flat bills. _Margot raised an eyebrow. "Well, at least around here we won't have to worry about what the neighbours think. I'm in no hurry. They'll build Acme Acres over there in maybe six thousand years then we can talk about it over a Foulplay traded coffee." She paused. "By then, I expect I could REALLY use one."

"We should maybe name them after something they'll never see, living here. Name them after something excellent, to keep the name alive." Plucky looked at the pale loon fledglings.

"Ferrari and Porsche?" Margot snickered. "At least they won't be bullied in school for having dumb names. No school. And who's around but us who speaks the language anyway?"

Plucky's eye fell on the empty Luxovice Lightweight wrapper that was included in their fire-lighting collection. "Candy. I can't ever give my kids candy. I can only give them the name." Plucky's eyes went wide. "I'll miss it too. That's what we'll call that one." He looked over at Margot.

"Well, hello to you, little Candi. I know what I'll miss more – seeing there's not a drop to drink around here but water. I appreciated a fine cognac brandy. So, Candi and Brandi?" Margot threaded the gutted fish on peeled willow twigs and propped them above the embers to roast. "Sounds a good pair." The food was healthy around here, she had to admit – and in a world without sugar and alcohol the two young loons would never need a dentist or a hangover cure.

"Candi and Brandi. Our girls. They won't ever see a schoolyard or a classroom – or a prom night, or a high-school dance. Or a movie." Though it caused his conscience a twinge, Plucky had to admit that Acme Looniversity had had its share of fun times. "But just think what we can tell them! We'll educate them ourselves. We'll tell them everything about where we're from, all about TV, and video games, and shopping malls, and…" he broke off, noticing Margot's disbelieving stare. "What?"

Margot sadly shook her head. She gestured at the fish steaming over the coals. "Plucky. We'll be lucky if we can catch them enough fish and clams to keep us all alive through the winters. You're going to tell them about food halls piled head-high with the most amazing feasts of foods they'll never taste, enough for hundreds of people, then tell them when they're hungry – _we had all that, whenever we wanted it, but_ _you can't ever have any_? Not that I ever much cared about doing good, but… is that a good thing to do to the chicks?"

Plucky gulped, turning a sickly shade of pale green. "I hadn't thought of that." His feathers drooped, and he was silent for a minute. "But there's a lot we can pass on to them – stories and songs and the wisdom of the ages… even if the ages haven't happened yet. Hey! It'll put them way ahead of the game."

Margot nodded. "That sounds more like it. Did you memorise a lot like that?"

The green mallard pulled out his air guitar from Hammerspace. "Sure! I know hundreds of songs! My favourite band are…" his feathers drooped as realisation hit him. "The ones Shirley's making hot videos with now. Deaf Mettle Foundry. I'm their biggest supporter. I downloaded rips of all their albums off a server in KazakhsToon – and I've sneaked into their local gigs to bootleg ALL their live tracks."

"I'm sure they'd be very happy to hear that." Margot sat back, watching the fish cook. She could more easily see why Shirley would drop Plucky than ever take up with him in the first place. Opposites attracted, certainly – but more often than not the attraction finished in a violent planetary collision and ricochet with trailing debris. It looked like this time round some of the forgotten debris had been egg-shaped.

Plucky closed his eyes. He resolved to run through all the songs he knew, and make notes of them before they had a chance for the memories to fade. In his head was the only copy on this timeline of Deaf Mettle Foundry's first album, '_Spilled Ink for the Ink God_.' His feather-fingers found the virtual chords on his air guitar, just as he recalled the first verse of his favourite track, 'Lost Canticle of Resorbius'. He sang:

"Out of the shadows of night, comes Resorbius

Seven fold demon he flies – the new moon is rising

Higher and higher and higher!

Resorbius! Incarnate again, brings despair

You slay him but know he'll repair!

Defeated, his body burns

But always, he shall return…."

Margot clapped, smiling. Plucky was actually rather good on air guitar. "Now that's really one they should make a film about. I read that time travel book where someone goes back and accidentally steps on a butterfly – and history changes."

Plucky looked around, blinking. "I don't see any butterflies. It's too early in the year."

Margot cast him a sidelong glance, then looked over at the sleeping chicks. "So far. But a world that started its oral culture with Dark Metal tracks and carried on from there – that looks like it'd turn out interesting."

* * *

Meanwhile, back at the ranch – "ranch" being very broadly the corral of unruly talents Colonel Fenix was tasked with keeping corralled and on task, that same Colonel was regretting his latest recruiting campaign. The scene was just outside of one of the ex-military trailers he had parked outside the McLoon household.

"Tell me, Corporal Barnes," the phoenix said slowly, looking into the trailer from the open door "exactly why is my office stacked wall to wall with a multi-coloured sea of waste bins?" The floor of the trailer was like an empty honeycomb, with open-topped bins packed together neatly.

"Sir! As ordered, while you were away I organised the office. In accordance with regulations." The border collie saluted precisely. "Regulations say there must be a separate secure disposal for every grade of document, from Unclassified through to Deny All Existence, Sir!"

"Mmm. That's six categories. What about the rest?" Hal Fenix gestured with a feather-hand. "All neatly coded, I can see that." The Corporal was not cleared to know that there were actually another two categories above Deny All Existence, and both of them were nameless. This caused less confusion than it might, since both categories were for knowledge far too hideous to ever be discussed or preferably even thought about.

"Sir! There are separate regulations about handling wet waste. Biologically or ink-contaminated waste. Chemically active waste. Radioactive waste. Demonically Possessed, or Cursed, or Theologically Dangerous wastes. Multiply all security grades by all possible combinations, and…"

"I see. So, if I had a document that was classified Kinda Secret that was wet, radioactive, soaked in ToonPox virus and contained Grade 7 heresies that could take down one of the world's major religions if it ever leaked out, which bin would that one go in?" Hal raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly.

"Bin 107, Sir!" The border collie pointed instantly to a bright yellow bin with fetching pink polka-dots, away in the corner.

"And if… the document was written on asbestos?" Hal hid his delight as he saw the ultra-keen canine's ears and tail instantly droop. _Gotcha. You didn't think of that one_.

"Sir! Regret I'll have to… recalculate. And requisition some more bins." To his credit, Corporal Barnes pulled out a calculator right away.

"While you're at it, requisition another trailer. Move all these bins into it. And yourself." Hal shook his head. Barnes might have a useful Talent (technically, an anti-talent) and a PhD in Crowd Control, but there was no denying he was hard work sometimes. "After that – good work, Corporal, I'll authorise you another six hours pack drill running over Mount Acme with a pack full of bricks."

"Sir yes sir!" The canine saluted crisply, his eyes bright and his tail wagging enthusiastically. He dashed off to requisition a Form M-17339, Requisition of [other forms].

"I could wish he wasn't so exacting," The phoenix pondered. "It's better to be vague about some things. As they say, the Devil is in the details."

"Makes you glad he's on our side, really." Hal turned to see Melicent McLoon, who had been watching events in her backyard with a detached air. "You do need the numbers."

"Yes." Hal's expression was troubled. "We're being rushed off our feet. It's like it's suddenly Open Season declared on Earth. Is there any mystic reason? Stars aligning or some such?"

Melicent shook her head. "No. It should be quiet, till Jupiter moves into Orion and Pluto aligns with Clarabelle_Cow and Clara_Cluck in the outer dark, after the Autumn Equinox. We're hardly expecting even the usual dead rising from their graves. Anything that's happening – someone's making it happen."

"As if someone got all the keys to the trapdoors into this dimension. And is letting through everything else from his side of the Veil, than wants to come on down and party on Earth. That's clever. The things he's letting through are running interference for him." Colonel Fenix's tail hiked in agitation.

"You think it's this chocolate-fiend vampire?" Melicent cocked her head to one side. "I'm sure it's involved. But – is it the main player, or just one of the bit-part actors something else brought in?"

"I don't know. But we'd better stop it, soonest. Things are happening all over. Sergeant Gander just intercepted a consignment of genuine 1950's Weenie Cola that "someone" sent forward through time to a local Historical Re-enactment Society. It was the original Secret Weenie-Cola Recipe; that was lost forever in 1961 and can't be made any more."

"And that is bad… how?" Melicent asked, an amused smile on her bill.

Hal opened his mind to show an image of a three-storey tall building on a river island by a city – it looked more like a factory, with pipelines and big old-fashioned electrical transformers around it. The doors were open to show a two-storey tall metal cylinder the size of a petrol tanker, into which everything was plumbed. Wisps of cold gas and condensing snow drifted from the pipework. Various Toons in a mix of classic tan military uniforms and civilians in white shirts with first-generation nylon pocket protectors, horn-rimmed glasses and slide-rules were standing around, looking disconsolately at empty cups and pitchers.

"Oh – I see it. They're really dedicated re-enactors. They can't go ahead till every single detail's authentic. And they're re-enacting… is it Bikini Atoll? I wouldn't have thought just off the BosToon river front was the place to do it." Melicent recognised the BosToon skyline from her trips to discuss Unspeakable Knowledge at the nearby MiskaToonic University.

"Nearly. Enewetok atoll, to be precise. Once they'd got the authentic 1950's Weenie Cola made with the proper Secret Recipe, they would have had an authentic refreshing break, pulled back twenty miles and – re-enactment time." Hal paused, contemplating. "There goes the neighbourhood. And as it's classed as a cultural heritage thing, it's not actually illegal till they fire it. After all, it's not technically a bomb, it's a Device."

"Yes." Melicent shook her head as she noticed the logo on the cryogenic gas tankers in the photo. "Someone really should have a word with ACME, about selling liquid deuterium to just anyone who phones up with a credit card. It only causes trouble." The company were notorious for sending out anything from fully working death-rays to occasionally working rocket-driven pogo-sticks to Toons as young as Acme Looniversity first-years. Calamity Coyote was sadly not the only one to fall for their persuasive sales pitch.

"And that's not the only one. Everyone's getting swamped – us, the Other Agency, the Other, Other Agency, and half a dozen other nameless Agencies. I know, I'm a member of several of them myself." Hal winked, and pulled out a totally blank business card. "After a point it gets less confusing, the more you join, really. But it's just as well your grand-children are out of the way."

"Even though they aren't where Shirley thinks they are. Oh, I've been watching them all the time." Melicent sighed. "While she was trying to hide them from her comrades, she couldn't even think about them in case they picked up the trail." She looked up at the clear skies. "There's danger where they are, but it's safer than here right now. No vengeful vampire on their astral trail – even if it read Shirley's mind, she couldn't give the location away because she hasn't done the calculation. Even so, she expects her spell just threw Plucky and the eggs clear. It didn't. It picked up Margot too and that threw things way out."

"As long as you know where they are. And I think your mind's about as well shielded as anyone's. Not that Shirley's at all bad, considering her experience." Hal smiled. "Acme Looniversity didn't do badly, considering none of their courses supported our kind of business. Then, neither did mine."

"Where did you go, exactly?" Melicent asked, interested. "Not to Acme Loo, you said." She recalled Hal regretting he had not attended the MiskaToonic University either, which would have given him a good head start in his career.

Hal's hard-to-explain avian teeth – flashed in a grin. "Believe it or not, I graduated from the original Rock and Roll High School, the famous one. There's still songs about that place. The four Ramone brothers were the year behind me; the only non-identical quadruplets I've ever met." He raised an eyebrow as Melicent mentally showed him where Plucky had got to. "Well. That's different. Safe from most pursuit, all the way out there."

"It has its dangers. But I have faith in Plucky." Melicent contemplated that idea. "More than my dear daughter has, to be honest. And here, there's always that chance that five hundred ferrotonnes of Intercontinental Ballistic Anvil is headed your way."

"Mmm. We're getting a lot of visitors from Outside, that's a fact." Hal's feathery antennae twitched, and a wry smile came to his beak. "Still, it's not all bad. Some inter-dimensional buyer spent a lot of money in town today. I'm not sure if he got it straight just what the customer wanted, though." He flashed her a mental image of two big removal trucks driving out through a Dimensional gate. One was filled with Catholic prayer books, and the other was laden with extravagant high-fashion hats.

Melicent smiled. "Oh, he might have got it right. After all – there's always an export market for missals and advanced millinery technology!"

* * *

Saturday morning a mile and a half away was somewhat less troubled. Fifi awoke with a smile on her face, yawned – and looked around the room. A bright Toon blush lit the room.

"Mon dieu! I 'ave – done it again." She spotted the two sleeping skunk males, and the memories of the previous night came flooding back.

"And again, and again, and again..." She rolled over to see Rhubella nose-to-nose in the bed with her. They kissed, tongues getting entangled in a Toonish manner. Rhubella sighed happily. "It's a good thing we found athletes. I always wondered what they meant by – 'Olympic standard' and now I know."

Fifi blushed. "I 'ope I 'ave not... 'urt zem?"

Rhubella looked down to the mattress where Rene and Jacques were still sleeping soundly – the bed was certainly big enough for two, but not for four. "I'm sure they'll be fine after a morning's rest. Toons are resilient. Athletes – doubly so." She stroked Fifi's soft purple fur. "You're amazing."

Fifi relaxed. "I am a lucky girl. To 'ave found anothair 'oo understands." It was probably a consequence of the Law of Conservation of Comedy, she reflected – she and Rhubella had fallen in love with each other, yet otherwise both remained extremely interested in "skunk-hunks". She hesitated. "Ruby. I know you do not want to do anything to… confuse ze stork, you say."

Rhubella nodded, looking down at her white stork feather – currently all she was wearing apart from her wedding ring. "Can't risk it. Storks make some pretty awful foul-ups anyway. All these handsome skunk-hunks are for you."

Fifi smiled, following her wife's wistful gaze to the two sleepers. "Aftair ze stork 'as been… If you wish it, Ruby, I will – try and return ze favour. Eef I can. Maybe I can nevair find ze 'andsome males for myself – but maybe I can find zem for vous."

"Mmmm. I thought when I married you, I'd found myself the hottest girl in town. I don't think so now." Rhubella's gaze was steady.

Fifi's ears and tail drooped. "Non?" She asked, in a small voice.

Rhubella laughed, hugging her tight. "Now I think I'm lucky enough to have the hottest girl – in the world!"

* * *

Down by Lake Acme, there were two toons who had not been told of Plucky's recent change of address. Gladys and Gracie were waddling towards the nest site carrying Plucky's breakfast plus his weekend's food supplies in their basket. The smell of freshly reheated pizza wafted across the swamp.

"He'll like this, I'm sure," Gladys commented. "I never felt right handing him all that food he really didn't want to eat." Suddenly she stopped, and a worried expression wrinkled her bill. "If Shirley isn't coming back – are we going to be doing this forever, Gracie? When the ducklings hatch, and everything."

Gracie shrugged. "As long as Shirley keeps paying. She's making money now, anyway. If she doesn't like what we're buying with it now, she can just do it herself. Anyway – I don't mind helping Plucky out, and the eggs." She sighed. "If only the stork would bring us some."

"We've tried, a lot longer than Margot's friend Rhubella did," Gladys agreed, her finger-feathers entwined with Gladys'. "She's got one on the way, from Fifi. So it can happen."

Just then they rounded the corner. And stopped, gazing wide-eyed at the water-filled crater where the nest had been. There was not a twig or a feather left of it.

Though they had never qualified for Acme Looniversity, both Toons' natural talents kicked in with a prize-giving Wild Take, their eyes bulging. They looked around wildly, as if expecting to see the nest moved to higher ground against the Autumn rains, or similar good reason to be elsewhere.

"Margot. We'll ask Margot. She's just around the corner," Gracie fought her panic down. "Maybe she knows where they've gone."

"Right. It can't have been anything world-shattering... we'd have heard about it." Though the nest site was in a secluded part of the swamp, there were always Toons passing by, and the two duck girls knew all their neighbours. They waddled in tense silence round the corner to the orange plastic life-raft, and found it empty. It looked as if it had been abandoned for days.

Two plain avians stared at each other in plain panic. Gladys pulled out her phone and dialled Margot's T-pad. She stared at the screen a minute, then silently showed the screen to Gracie.

"Device not found on all networks. Not stolen, or switched off, or gone to Mars – it's just – not there anymore." Gracie blinked. She began to dial another number, one they had been asked to keep off except for emergencies. This looked as if it fitted the bill.

* * *

That morning, Shirley was enjoying a few hours of much-needed relaxation, with the door to her caravan physically bolted and psychically warded against all intrusion. She was sitting cross-legged, levitating six inches above her bean-bag as she chanted her mantra:

"Ommmm, what a loon I ammmm…

Ommmm, what a loon I ammmm…"

While her bruised spirit-body rested and healed, her thinking mind ran through the previous day's events. She had kept in touch with all her Acme Looniversity friends – and some of them had surprising news. On the computer was a message replying to Calamity Coyote – the young tech genius had puzzled over an email from Japan, that had been entirely in binary machine-code. Not that he had taken more than a minute to decipher it, but the puzzle had been the message itself – someone had wanted Gogo Dodo's Number. Not his telephone number, but his cabalistic Number.

"Like, that's a good call by Calamity," Shirley nodded to her aura. "I'm the one to ask, fer sure." She had taken Gogo Wackston Dodo's name transcribed into ancient Hebrew and combined it with the dates his egg had been laid and hatched to calculate his numerological identifier.

_Just like 666 is the Number of the Beast – and I bet Calgari has that on his phone's speed-dial – 1024 is the Number of Gogo, Last of the Dodos_, her aura confirmed_. Strange. A bird that odd, you'd totally think it'd be an odd number._

Shirley snickered. "That's just one more mondo odd thing about him. And someone needs to know it." She recalled seeing the picture of Gogo's Japanese girlfriend, a beautiful numerically controlled fabrication device normally used in shaping aircraft parts. The wacky bird had dated a wide range of domestic appliances and industrial machinery around Acme Acres, but now had found true love – and she evidently wanted his numeric input to work on.

_Maybe he won't be last of the Dodos much longer_, her aura commented_ if she's naturally into building flying things and tooled up for mass production_… If Gogo would return to Wackyland was anyone's guess; although everyone had thought he needed its ambient insanity to survive for any length of time, apparently Japan was weird enough to sustain him.

Just then her telephone rang. She exerted her telekinesis, bringing it floating over. Her eyebrow rose as she noted Gracie's number. "Like, Shirley here." Her feathers bristled slightly at the panic-stricken voice until she realised what Gracie was describing. "Oh, it's cool. It was an emergency spell I'd put on the nest in case anything totally heavy went down. Sent Plucky and my daughters off to this safe haven time line, you know?"

She nodded, as Gracie described the scene further. "Fer sure. This major demon's in our part of the astral plane, snacking on Toons who snack on these cursed candy bars. We're hunting it." A thought struck her. "Like, you should avoid Luxovice Lightweight bars big-time. I'm just glad Plucky's never had any, with the harmonious diet you've been bringing him. Fer sure – that's what I said. Luxovice Lightweight. Why?"

There was an extra-gross sound-effect she was all too familiar with, that generally announced the sudden arrival of a ton of guano on the stage. Shirley heard it in stereo over the phone. Suddenly the colour drained out of her feathers as Gracie stammered out an explanation. "You fed him WHAT? One every day?" She had been content that the astral vampire had tracked Plucky by what it had read in her mind – Plucky was gone from that spot, and she thought he had left no trace. But if he had been eating the candy too – wherever he was, he was radiating a signal that the invader could follow with enough motivation. Having read her mind as to just what the mallard and eggs were to her – Shirley was sure it was extremely motivated.

This time, the sound effect was much nearer home. And it sounded like two tons of guano appearing on the scene.

"It's time to like bring them home. Now." Shirley put the phone down and summoned up all her energies. The spell on the nest had been accumulating power for weeks; she only had to plug it in the landscape's natural energy flows and leave it charging. This she would have to do the hard way. She brought the spell to mind and began the calculations – this was what Calamity Coyote would have called the difference between writing a program and actually running it. Input was the physical and psychic "weight" of Plucky and her eggs, plus the nest and its protections.

"Opening portal – now." She gasped with effort, summoning what looked like a portable hole but one that extended between the timelines. She looked through, nodding with relief as she checked it was exactly where she had intended to get to. There was a pristine Lake Acme, a sky clear of all pollution and a land unspoiled by its inhabitants. She sent her aura through, and experienced a stomach-churning spiritual disorientation as it was suddenly in a different time zone. A clock seen through the portal would hardly seem to be working, the seconds hand moving no faster than a minute hand usually would.

The landscape was certainly unspoiled. In fact it was empty – her aura spotted some distant bison toons, but apart from that there was nobody around. No Plucky, no eggs – nothing within a day's walk or swim of where the nest should have appeared. There was no trace of the nest, either.

"Like, gah…." Shirley's bill fell wide open in shock "where ARE they?" She called her aura back, and they furiously recalculated the spell. "There's no problem here – that spell threw that weight – here." She froze. Her electronics jinx should have stopped Plucky bringing into the nest anything like his beatbox or anything else that would have put the weight up – she had even calculated the amount of food there would have been uneaten when the spell fired.

_But those two brainless feather dusters fed him chocolate_, her aura remarked sourly _who knows what else they brought him?_ The vision of Plucky sitting on the nest with a complete hundred-pound weight set of printed encyclopaedias to while away the time flashed across their minds. _Well, maybe not that – but something._

Shirley's finger-feathers stabbed at her phone, dialling back to Gracie. "Gracie? Like, if I wasn't so centred I'd be totally furious with you two but – just tell me. Is anything else gone? Something that could have been in the nest with Plucky? Or near enough to get grabbed in the spell?"

Had Shirley been more prone to slapstick, her beak would probably have fallen off. "Margot Mallard's missing too?" She knew she was out of Calamity's league in maths, but she could add two and two together. Liking the result or not was no part of the math. She put the phone down, her eyes wide in horror. Not just that Margot had probably gone along for the ride – and with a Perfecto graduate there was no telling her motivations – but she had no clear idea of how much she weighed.

"Think. She's a head taller than me. She's built physically powerful – like she's trying to compensate for a bogus aura. She's got mammal chromoplasm in the family. No tail-feathers - Maybe she's got solid bones, mammal style? And she's got mammal… bulges. Way gross." Shirley unconsciously brushed her feather-fingers down her smooth sweep of frontal feathers. _Unlike me, a pure-bred avian_, she reminded herself proudly – _I've everything a bird needs, and nothing I shouldn't have…_

_Margot's a Perfecto grad. Probably wearing a heavy armoured suit with a stash of gold bars for emergencies, _her aura commented acidly. _And a platinum credit card made from real platinum._

"Hush, you. This is bad enough." She shushed her blue-glowing astral form, guesstimated Margot's weight and recalculated the spell. "Oh, like totally wow. That'd put them – way over there. Maybe not even in a slow running zone after all."

_What if Margot went for a morning swim? Wet feathers are heavy_. Shirley's aura seemed to be enjoying herself.

Shirley blinked. Opening up dimensional gates like this was hard work. Holding a gate open long enough to explore rather than just grabbing her eggs and shepherding Plucky home, was harder. Having to recalculate timelines a dozen times and more with different starting weights was starting to look ruinous – and she had no idea of the strength of Margot Mallard's aura, which would have affected all the variables.

_Like, go for it._ Her aura merged with her physical body, adding her energies. They took their best guess and cast the portal spell again. Her aura plunged through like a ghostly reconnaissance drone and spent four minutes exploring. _This one's a mondo nega-toro._

She closed the portal as soon as her aura returned and sat back, gasping. Just then there came a knock on her trailer door. Shirley relaxed her wardings a crack and took a look outside – her tail-feathers drooped as she spotted Angelina and Calgari standing outside.

"Like, what do you two Sith lord wannabes want?" she snapped.

Angelina held out her feather-hands placatingly. "We could spot what you're trying to do. Do you think you can hide that much power drain?"

"Come over to laugh?" Shirley looked at the pair disdainfully.

"Actually – we're here to help." Calgari winked. "We're on your team now, remember? And we have a responsibility to try and guide you to the light." A special-effect halo appeared over his head, only spoiled by being furnace yellow-red rather than white.

"You'll never do it, the way you're trying to. It's like breaking down every door in a city, trying to find someone," Angelina said. "I've got a tracker spell. It only needs one of your feathers and a drop of blood. It'll trace your chicks, fer sure. No matter how far in sideways time they are." She showed Shirley what she had in mind.

Shirley hesitated. True, she had enough energy for another three or four goes – but parallel times were stacked like pages in a library of books piled up across several dimensions. "I'll do it. I found out Plucky's been eating those candy bars. The astral vampire has his number."

"Oh, we found out how those work," Angelina said. "We've just been with Colonel Fenix. Almost all of them are really low-level cursed. But one in every crate – whoo-hoo! It's like having a Geiger counter scanning chunks of granite, just a few slow clicks on the dial, then the hundredth one – pure pluToonium. Needle goes off the scale. Falls right off."

"He had one of those mondo cursed ones." Shirley felt herself growing paler. "He can be tracked."

"Then there's no time to stand around arguing - 'hey ho, let's go!' As they used to say." Calgari grinned. "I just need a drop of your blood and a feather plucked willingly by you."

Shirley hesitated, but started to reach for her tail-feathers. Then she noticed in the mirror the gleeful look on Angelina's face, the magpie standing behind her. "No way! I just remembered Mother telling me what you can DO with that."

"No blood and feather, no spell. It's up to you. We're only trying to help." Calgari's beak had a well-practiced expression of injured innocence.

Shirley thought for a second, and then a slow smile spread over her bill. "So you can, like, help. I want that tracker spell. And I'll ask Colonel Fenix if he can spare that totally cursed Misfortune cookie pretending to be a candy bar. I have an idea."

Twenty minutes of Shirley's elapsed time later, she stepped out into another unspoiled version of Acme Acres.

_This is it! I can see Plucky's ego from here! His aura, I mean_, Shirley's aura flared bright with excitement. She had used the cursed candy itself as a tracker – betting that they only existed on Earth, she had used the spell with one modification – to exclude all traces except those away from her Earth timeline. Plucky's trace had appeared like a faint star appearing at dusk, once the tainted mass of the bars on Earth had been filtered out.

"You didn't have to come with me," she looked down her beak at her classmates.

"Oh – think nothing of it," Calgari replied smoothly. "We could use a break. And a laugh." He had noticed the local time distortion was running sixty 'times' faster than at their home plane.

They rounded the corner and spotted a reed hut that Shirley had last seen in Acme Acres – Plucky's old home. Inside was the nest she had built. Two mallards were in there asleep on what looked like a two-tone brown fur blanket, and two white chicks nestled between them. She froze. "They've already hatched. And bonded. And I wasn't there."

"My, how the time does fly," Angelina looked up at the dawn skies innocently. "Looks like everyone's alive and well." She rummaged for a brown foil pack, and offered it to Shirley. "It's breakfast time, here. Want a goat's blood MRE? Tlalocopa just got issued a stock, official issue. It's a chupocabra ethnic thing." She handed one to Calgari, who accepted it eagerly.

"Mondo gross." Shirley waved it away in disgust. Her eyes widened as they took in the scene. Plucky was in his bare feathers except for a fur hat reminiscent of a Davy Crockett style, except the tail part was not from a raccoon. Margot wore nothing – and more shockingly, was unconcealed though fast asleep. Shirley had seen her at the beach, and knew she naturally concealed. Or she used to. "Gah. How can she do that while she's asleep? Unless…" She remembered what Red Hot Riding Hood had once told the girls on the senior year, that Toons who normally 'walked around concealed' could chose to forever lose the ability by a determined act of will. Then her bill caught the mallards' scents – she sniffed in confusion, until she realised. The wrong scents were coming from the wrong birds.

Shirley looked on in horror. "Can you scent that? Plucky… his feathers are waterproofed – he's wearing her oils!" Her mood ring had flashed yellow in shock, but in a few seconds it darkened to black shot with an angry blood-red.

"And she wears his, all over. Isn't that sweet? What a darling, old-fashioned notion." Angelina snickered. "Looks like there's no wedding ring boutique around here – can you imagine that?" She looked at Shirley's mood ring, licking her sharp beak-edges appreciatively. "Oh, yes. Revenge time! Or if you're still, like, squeamish… just channel someone who'd be like mondo happy to do the job for you." Her light mental probe offered Shirley the psychic equivalent of a telephone number. "Call up my wolf friend Ilse from the 1940's… she's totally into that. And whatever she does won't be your fault. It's Karma-light."

"Or if you prefer – try a little something I've been tinkering with. I got an A for it in Practical Metaphysics class last term," Calgari smiled subtly. "It's an over-bored, stripped-down, hot-rodded, afterburning, jacked-up Egyptian Curse. Nineteenth Dynasty, full porphyry jacket. I think you'll be impressed."

"Coolest! What does it do?" Angelina's black eyes gleamed like polished coal.

The raven winked at her. "Put it like this… the last toon I tried it on? They think it was probably his gall bladder someone spotted bouncing down a country road in Wisconsin. Definitely it was some of his feathers that burned up on re-entry over the Antarctic icecap." He offered Shirley the psychic equivalent of a recipe.

Shirley blocked it with her mental shield, shaking her head in disgust. She slowly walked over to the two loon chicks, and her expression softened. They had been hatched for nearly a month, their time. A month that she had promised herself so much and would never see now. Both woke up in the same instant and fixed their eyes on her.

Shirley looked at them, her heart melting. Her mind made contact with them – and her expression froze at what she saw. She half-heatedly swatted at the intruding mental probe Angelina slid in while her defences were down, but not before the magpie had managed to peek at what she had read.

"Looks like they've not had a sheltered life," Angelina whispered to Calgari. "That fur they were sleeping on – it's wolverine fur. Plucky and Margot had a close encounter with one. Nil points, Team Wolverine. It involved a big pit full of spikes and them finishing the job with those spears. Way gladiator style. Nice."

"I can't believe it. They totally, killed and like – cut its dead body up and – ate it? They gave some of its flesh to my chicks to eat and – clothed them in its dead skin?" All the colour drained from Shirley's feathers. "They've eaten what was like, a murder?"

"Hey, it's all-natural, locally sourced organic food, like you keep going on about. So why are you complaining? Loons aren't natural vegetarians, so what's with you and all that Tofu?" Angelina sidled up to a horrified Shirley. "Besides – you want they should have tried relationship therapy with a wild wolverine? I know how that'd have ended. Wolverine four, waterfowl nil."

"Anyway – I can see you need to work more on your harmony. Colonel Felix only needs balanced Toons on his team," Calgari added.

"Me? Me unbalanced?" Shirley's beak fell wide open in shock.

"Fer sure." Angelina winked at her. "We're modern Samurai, totally into Zen harmonies. Don't you think so?"

Shirley wavered. She had thought of the idea a few times, trying to reconcile her nature and her job. "Well, maybe. But, so?"

"Samurai. They weren't just sword-waving Toons," Angelina's voice almost purred. "They were cultured; major into calligraphy and tea ceremonies, and Zen. They could put down their writing brush, turn and cut a ninja clean in half from shoulder to hip in one blow, clean the sword then sit down and finish the calligraphy without even raising their pulse. That's balance."

"Anyway – you chose to send Plucky and your chicks somewhere to live as part of the ecosystem, right? Maybe not here but one like it, right? It's an ecosystem. Ducks get eaten by predators sometimes. Or hadn't you thought about that bit?" Calgari put in.

Both loon chicks looked up at Shirley – then turned their beaks away and wriggled over to snuggle next to Margot. The sleeping mallard stirred, a smile on her beak as they started to nurse.

"Whose chicks, exactly?" Calgari put in snidely. "Not yours. They don't think so."

"Anyway – grab them and let's get out of here." Angelina shrugged. "If something's worth having, it's worth stealing. Mind over matter. We don't mind and they don't matter."

Shirley looked at the white loon chicks. She hesitated.

"It's not a problem," Calgari whispered in her ear-hole. "Grab them and – bamf! We're out of here, back to our timeline. They're legally yours, any chromoplasm test would prove it."

"Besides – what are those two going to do about it – call the cops? Around here?" Angelina's wing flicked dismissively, covering Plucky, Margot and the wide, primordial landscape.

"They'll probably just think some wandering sabre-tooth tiger grabbed the chicks for canapés. I can help." Calgari exerted his mental force and a huge feline paw-print appeared in the riverbank mud just in front of Shirley. "There's the evidence. Case closed."

Shirley angrily stamped on the deceptive print – her own webbed feet were near enough the size and shape of Plucky's as made no odds – not only was he no Sherlock Holmes, but the most bumbling portrayals of Watson would have run rings round him any day. "Like, totally no way." She bowed her head. Taking four charged crystals out of her official issue Molle webbing pouch [Unit M-2011 D Medium, Spell Component Carrier] she concentrated for half a minute with all her power. She drooped visibly and her aura dimmed with the power she was expending.

Angelina winked at her Addams Academy comrade. "See that? It's a Red Shoes series spell from Oz – the old 'there's no place like home.' That is so passé."

Shirley finished, gasping. She teleported the crystals to the inside of the reed hut, and with a light mental touch imparted on four sleeping minds exactly what they were – though none of them would be able to say exactly how they knew. "When they want to come home – they can. If they don't want to – that's like, karma."

End Chapter Eleven


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